


A Budapest Christmas

by shetlandowl



Series: Budapest Christmas [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Also please don't hate me but Steve isn't a Brooklyn boy, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, He's a Boston/New England boy, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, I don't know if this qualifies as identity porn, M/M, So many lies and so much deception and gaslighting here - despite their best intentions, it's more like couple identity!porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 82,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: A Housesitter AU where Tony moves into Steve's place, charms his parents, befriends his life-long friends, and repairs the relationships Steve ruined in the aftermath of his own heartbreak. Their relationship is a happy, loving, and supportive one; or, at least it was so until Steve showed up unannounced and was congratulated on a marriage he'd never heard of.





	1. A house, our home (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an off-hand comment in [IMZY](https://www.imzy.com/bringing_food_to_lab_stony) and then I couldn't shake it. And apparently I gravitate towards lies & liars because here's my second Stony fic and I'm 2/2 featuring liars. You're welcome.
> 
> More importantly: many, many thanks to ishipallthings for the beta and extensive hand-holding! <333
> 
>  **Please note:** for those who are sensitive to minor/original characters who may or may not be OOC, you may want to turn the other way. I don't know very much about Steve's, Bucky's, or Sam's parents, so I'm writing them as I enjoy them.

He really should have been paying more attention to the road, but Peggy was so beautiful. Besides, the road had been there for years – it wasn’t going anywhere, and nobody else was on it; who could blame him for watching her instead? With the blindfold over her eyes, he had this one rare opportunity to stare – and sure, somewhere in his skull rattled a giant, red hazard flag that reminded him that driving was best accomplished with his eyes consistently on the road, but he couldn’t bring himself to care when the wind was sweeping up her thick, honey brown curls and drawing them around her perfect, creamy white neck in a mesmerizing dance. 

And her lips; god, those full, luscious red lips that never let him get away with shit, never let him forget how much she cared, and never let him accept mediocrity.

“Where are you taking me?” she wondered, endearing to him even in her impatience.

“Where am I?”

“I don’t know!” he admitted, “I’m blindfolded, too.”

“Steve!” she laughed, smacking him hard in the shoulder.

“I’m kidding!” Steve answered with a grin, taking her hand in his and pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand. “We’re almost there, sweetheart, I promise.”

“Almost where?” she insisted, but she was still laughing and shaking her head. “You and your dramatics.”

He turned the red Mustang convertible down a graveled path off the country road, through a natural canopy of lush foliage, and distantly thanked the New England climate for such a romantic backdrop. Between the cool, sunny day and the early summer breeze, he was sure Peggy would see what he had seen, and imagine herself living the dream he could practically taste.

The gravel path ended in a small circular driveway, and he took a gentle turn around until he had the perfect view of the house. “We’re here,” he whispered, leaning over to lift the blindfold off her face, careful of her makeup and her hair.

She moved her hands over her hair to settle it from its more recent windswept style, and turned in her seat to see where exactly Steve had taken them. But the house was unfamiliar and entirely new. In a small clearing between the majestic oaks and a peaceful pond sat a pale yellow house - it was built as two separate structures that were connected by a short glass hallway, and shared the same wrap-around patio. To top it off, an enormous red ribbon was tied around the posts of the porch in a grand romantic gesture.

“Steve,” she asked cautiously, “what is this?”

He turned away from the house to face her, and with his arms raised as if to encompass all of him and all of the house, he took a deep breath and asked the question he had been dying to ask all year long: “Will you marry me?”

“Pardon?”

“Peggy, I have loved you since the ninth grade, marry me!”

She eyed the house, then slowly looked back at him. “You bought this house?”

“Bought it?” he almost laughed, hopping up on the patio and petting the first post he reached affectionately, taking in the house for what it was to be: a home. “I’m an architect – I designed it, I built it.”

“You built this house? For me?”

“For us,” he corrected gently, coming back to the car with a big smile. “A home for the two of us, Peggy.”

“Steve, you’re crazy,” she said slowly, still looking fairly stunned.

“And you are so sane! It’s perfect, what do you say?”

“This is like something out of a fairy tale,” she admitted, a laugh bubbling up.

Steve smiled broadly, reaching for her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “So, will you have me, Peggy?”

Peggy couldn’t stop her laughter, and she returned the gentle squeeze of Steve’s hand and held it in her own. “I’m sorry, Steve. My answer is no.”


	2. You and I remember Budapest very differently

The party was in full swing all around them when Natasha and Steve arrived at the Budapest, an overabundance of celebrating crowds, tasteful hors d'oeuvres, and endless champagne as far as the eyes could see. No expense was spared to extol Mosby & Associates’s most recent achievement and addition to the New York skyline.

“I still think it’s a boring building no matter how you look at it,” Steve complained as they made their through the currents of happy, excitable coworkers. “It’s just another big ugly monstrosity. Don’t New Yorkers have taste?”

“Steve, I think you’re missing the big picture. The best thing about this project in two words? Billable hours,” and to that shared interest they toasted their champagne flutes.

“But shouldn’t we enjoy doing—hey, whoa whoa!” Steve yelped as he realized his champagne was being refilled over capacity, and rushed to hold it farther away from his suit. “Thank you, that’s enough!”

The young waiter looked up at him, confused, then seemed to realize he was spilling the champagne and quickly righted the bottle. “Oh! Oh, okay, okay, okay, I sorry,” he apologised with a heavy accent.

Natasha smiled at the accent. “That’s alright. Where are you from?”

“Eh?” the waiter wondered, peering at her in confusion even as he tried to get by them to continue his round.

“Don't worry about it,” she smiled at him, and Steve, recognizing the patterned behavior, rolled his eyes at her. “I asked where you are from.”

“Hungary?” Steve supplied helpfully, “are you from Hungary?”

“Ah, yes,” he nodded with a relieved smile, “yes, hungry.”

“She wants to know if you speak English,” Steve explained, pointing to Natasha.

“Eh?” the waiter wondered again, eyeing them both with growing suspicion.

“He said are you ticklish, do you spank?” Natasha asked with a straight face; Steve, far less prepared for her language, spun around to face her, wide-eyed.

“Nat!” he hissed, “so not appropriate!”

But the waiter looked as confused as ever, brown eyes searching them for any sort of clarification. “Tony,” he answered at last, “is to be called Tony.”

The owner of the Budapest rushed up to them on a patrol through the party, and with waving arms and a raised voice he urged Tony to continue on. “Go!” he cried, to which Tony only yelled back in a foreign language even as the owner kept crying, “Go, go, go! And you,” he said to Natasha and Steve once Tony had finally snuck off, “enjoy the party! Go, go!”

“He liked you,” Natasha said with a grin, giving Steve a little shove, and another, and another.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve batted her insistent hand away, “I’m sure he prefers the sort of women who ask him if he likes to spank.”

“He could have liked you. He’s twenty, twenty-three, tops: at that age he could like anything,” she countered, finishing her champagne and trading it in for a full flute with a passing waitress. “You’re the one who has to make it happen. Peggy was over six months ago, it’s time to move on. Move on: overcome. Or come over someone; either way you’d be cured.”

“You and champagne are a bad combination. You’re too amused by everything,” Steve muttered, mostly to himself. “Besides, who just ‘moves on’? I still love Peggy, Nat, how do I just ‘move on’?”

“You start by getting laid,” she suggested casually, and true to form, Steve grimaced. “What else are you supposed to do on a Friday night?”

“Nat, you’re my crudest friend,” he complained, downing his flute of champagne in a single gulp. “And you don’t even know how high that bar is; you should meet Bucky.”

“Is he good in bed?”

“Yeah, I’ll need something stronger than champagne for that conversation,” Steve said with a grimace. “He’s my brother, Nat.”

“And you haven’t gotten laid in six months,” she pointed out. “If he’s anything like you he’s useless to me.”

“There’s more to a relationship than sex!” Steve cried, perhaps too loudly if the turning heads were anything to go by. He cleared his throat and gave a few polite nods of acknowledgement to the people staring at him.

“What about Denise?” Natasha asked, unrepentant. “Or Patricia, she would go out with you in a heartbeat.”

Steve stared at her as he tried to place these names, and with a confused look finally asked, “Who, Patricia in accounting?”

“Mosby, 11 o’clock,” she suddenly whispered and turned away from Steve to greet Mosby as he emerged from the crowd; how she had even known he was coming was beyond Steve, but he, too, stood up out of respect. She held out her hand to the amiable owner and leading genius behind the architectural company they worked for, and with a broad smile said, “Mr. Mosby, congratulations on another beautiful job.”

“Thank you, Romanova,” he returned her smile and her firm handshake, clapping her on the shoulder. “I believe all of us deserve to feel proud with this accomplishment.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, “and your leadership on this project has been inspirational. You know,” she added, gesturing to Steve, “I don’t know if you know Steve Rogers here, from the firm.”

“Rogers,” Mosby politely followed Natasha’s direction and reached out to shake Steve’s hand.

Steve was quick to respond, shaking Mosby’s hand firmly, but less quick with a greeting. “Mr. Mosby, hi. Uh, the building,” he stammered momentarily, gesturing with his hands as he floundered at communicating his thoughts. “Wow! It’s there.”

Mosby eyed him expectantly. “Yes?”

“Uh—you know that Boston bank building you designed years ago? As a student I stood on the sidewalk for hours absorbing that structure,” he admitted with a shy smile, “to this day, it still surprises me.”

“Thank you, Rogers!” Mosby grinned, delighted, and then started to walk away.

But Steve wasn’t finished. “Don’t you think we should be going for that kind of originality instead of these same designs over and over? This—these cookie-cutter structures? Don’t you feel sometimes that we’re just going through the motions?”

“We are the largest architectural firm in New England,” Mosby answered with an impatient bite. “Evidently, some people like what we do.” And with that, he walked away without another look at either Steve or Natasha.

Natasha closed her eyes for a moment, coming to terms with the fact that Steve did just say those words to their boss. “Why did you stop there, Steve? Why didn’t you just kick him in the balls and tell him he has ugly grandchildren?”

“I thought he’d appreciate a—a fresh point of view,” Steve stammered, trying to explain past-Steve’s choices now that future-Steve was left with the consequences.

“Why would you ever think that? He’s the _boss_ ,” she reminded him dryly.

“Has it ever occurred to you that we’re just different?” Steve wondered, but Natasha just shrugged, picked up two glasses of champagne from a passing tray.

“Of course,” she agreed. “Come Monday, I will still have a job.”

***

Many hours later, Steve was the only straggler from the Mosby & Associates offices at the Budapest. Around him the restaurant employees were cleaning and closing up shop, wiping down tables and pushing in chairs. But Steve had nowhere to go and nobody to see, and not for the first or even the thousandth time in his life he found his only solace in the simple, absorbing art of sketching.

The waiter from earlier, Tony, walked around him to as he made quick work of wiping down the bar-top counter, but otherwise ignoring Steve’s presence. Steve watched him move away down the counter with a quiet sigh.

“Is Tony, yes?” he asked, his words slightly slurred and obnoxiously projected. “Handsome Tony from Hungary who speaks no English? That,” he said, and held up the little napkin he’d been sketching on as Tony came back to his side of the bar to pick up some glasses, and maybe there were some furtive glances at the drawing on the napkin, but otherwise Tony patently ignored him. “That is a drawing of an engagement ring that I designed and even built,” Steve explained, “but, as engagement rings go, it turned out to be a little, you know, big. Wasn’t a good fit, or something.”

The waiter continued to ignore him, and sure, he spoke little English, Steve had known; but Steve still huffed at the loud silence and folded up the napkin and put it in his pocket. “So what do you say To-ny,” he called, a touch obnoxiously, “to-when do you work and to-where can go?”

At the other end of the room, Tony threw out the litter and discarded food he had picked up on his last round and put away the dirty dishes. Another Budapest worker, this one a young redheaded woman, hurried by past him to pick up her purse from behind the bar. “Good night, Tony,” she said and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she walked past him again.

“Sleep well, Pep!” he smiled at her, wiping down his hands as he finally finished up.

She doubled back a moment later, popping back into the room to say, “Hey, don’t worry about opening tomorrow morning. I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re the best, Pepper,” he grinned and gave her another kiss, “I could use a day to sleep in.”

“No sweat. See you at twelve!”

“Ciao!” he called after her, then turned to give Steve a pointed look over his shoulder before he, too, left the room.

There was no graceful exit after that, and once the shock wore off and he had bumped his head a couple times too many on the bar top, Steve grabbed his things and bolted. But it was mid-December and the chance of finding an unoccupied cab at this time of night was too slim for Steve’s poor luck.

“Have a good night, honeybear,” a smiling voice said from behind him, and recognizing the voice Steve turned on his heel to see Tony saying goodnight to a coworker on his way out of the Budapest.

“Hey, Tony!” Steve called in his direction, and for the first time Tony turned to look at him expectantly as he shrugged into a coat. “You tricked me. Why were you pretending to be Hungarian?”

“Ambience,” Tony said, unrepentant, buttoning up his coat and pulling his bright red scarf up to protect his throat from the cold.

“But you still tricked me,” Steve accused, trying and failing to look more annoyed than pouting.

“I didn’t trick you, I deceived you,” Tony corrected him, not unkindly.

Steve paused and struggled to remind himself of what that could mean before finally he had to ask, “What—what’s the difference?”

“Intention.”

Steve huffed and shrugged his shoulders. “What are you, a law student or something?”

Tony grinned brightly, “Hey, in one!”

“Really? I guessed it, you’re a law student?” Steve happily returned Tony’s grin, wandering over to him out of curiosity. “That’s great, where do you go to school?”

“Don’t you mean _to-where_ do I go to school?”

“I—I’m sorry. I admit, I was a little condescending back there, I—”

“Yeah, when you thought I was just a waiter,” Tony finished the sentence for him.

“—I apologize, I shouldn’t have—”

Once he heard Steve’s apology, Tony grinned and walked away. “Yeah, I’m not a law student.”

“What?” Steve blinked, his somewhat groggy mind having trouble catching up. “Why’d you tell me you’re a law student?”

Tony turned to look back at him over his shoulder with a smirk. “I didn’t tell you I was a law student, you told me I was a law student. I just told you I wasn’t a law student.”

Steve stared after him in bewilderment and a vague acceptance that he had just been run over by a conversation, but when reality finally resumed he hurried after Tony, calling his name. “Wait! Wait, Tony—listen, can—can we maybe go somewhere and have a cup of coffee or something?”

“No, I really have to get home,” Tony declined politely, but Steve only took another small step forward.

“Then—share my cab? Maybe I could give you a lift? My phone is dead, but I’m sure one will come by soon—”

“Thank you very much, but I’m really close.”

“Could I walk you then?” Steve asked in a last-ditch effort. “I could use some air.”

“Boston December air?” Tony eyed him skeptically, then shrugged and led the way down the street. “Alright, sure. Come on.”

“Thank you,” Steve grinned and hurried to catch up with him. “So, are you from around here?”

“Here? No,” Tony said, and he set a comfortable pace for their walk, easing any remaining concern Steve might have that Tony wanted to get away. “Boston is just one of the cities I’ve always wanted to live in,” he went on to explain, “before that I lived in Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Fe, New Orleans, New York—which is where I grew up, not far from here, really—then Toledo—”

“Toledo?” Steve asked, a little surprised.

“Yeah, I wasn’t there long, but I lived there right after New York so I count it.”

“That’s incredible,” Steve commented quietly, a soft smile on his lips. “I’ve never lived anywhere.”

“Really?” Tony looked at him in surprise. “How can you never live anywhere?”

“Well, no,” Steve corrected in a hurry, shaking his head at himself. “No, no of course, but I’ve only lived here and in Dobbs Mill. It’s where I grew up, it’s about fifty miles from here. It’s one of those white picket fence sort of towns, your basic church steeple, town square, big fireman’s pancake breakfast, and all the kids grew up together and everybody knows you, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony agreed, directing their stroll off the pavement and down through a little park instead. “So is that where she’s from?”

“Who?”

“The babe who thought the house was too big for her finger?”

“Oh! Peggy,” Steve said with a smile he couldn’t resist, then was quick to shrug in an overly casual gesture. “Yeah, no she’s there, but that’s over, long, long over.”

Tony laughed, a deep, easy laugh, so infectious that Steve couldn’t resist a smile. “Right, it’s over; but I bet you still have pictures of her in your wallet.”

With no better warning Tony pounced on him, slipping his hand right up Steve’s jacket to grab the wallet out of his back pocket. Steve yelped at the sudden onslaught and tried to dance out of the way, but Tony’s hands were too quick and soon enough he was several feet away, going through his wallet and the pictures Steve kept there.

“Who cares about wallets,” he muttered in a dejected defeat, shuffling after Tony.

“You know, you could go to jail for this,” Tony noted with an ironic sort of neutrality, and Steve frowned deeply in confusion. In two quick strides he was right against Tony’s side, peering down at whatever he must have seen.

“No, no, you—that’s her in the sixth grade,” Steve laughed, then took back his wallet out of Tony’s frozen hands. “Here, let me get you a more up-to-date—seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade—anyway, it’s over, she’s history. Here she is! Last year’s regional field hockey championship. She's deadly; I goalied for her once, and only once. But did you see that second picture? Isn’t it funny, wasn’t she a cute baby? She was going to throw some of these away, and I told her, are you crazy? They’re such cute pictures.”

Tony smiled in agreement, and listened with his friendly, bright attention as Steve rambled through the history of his and Peggy’s relationship. They walked comfortably for some time, Steve reminiscing, Tony listening, until they eventually turning back from the park to the city streets.

“But it’s time I moved on, you know? Or at least take the ribbon off the house,” Steve admitted, shrugging further into his coat.

“You mean you still own it but nobody’s living in it?”

“Yeah, it’s a waste, huh?” Steve sighed, clearly having heard similar comments before. “It’s just—it’s so nice up there, especially this time of year with the leaves changing, the first snow, the lakes frozen over and all the kids out skating… and it’s got this wrap-around columned porch—a classic Yankee farmhouse meets Greek Revival meets American Gothic; and it looks onto this pond and rolling hills, and to its back there’s woods all around that give you complete privacy—and in the living room I’ve put in these switch-back stairs that go up to the loft, where—oh,” Steve stopped talking at once, as if suddenly aware of what he was doing. “I’m sorry, I—I still get a little excited when I talk about it. I don’t use it, but...”

“But what?” Tony asked in a gentle voice.

“But I just can’t bring myself to sell it,” Steve admitted. “I love it, I can’t—it’s like I’m stuck where I am, like I can’t change. Do you ever feel like that?”

“No,” Tony answered with a smile, slowing to a halt on the pavement. “I make a habit of changing myself all the time. When things don’t work out, I change: I change what I do, I change where I live, I change myself.”

Steve couldn’t help a laugh, shaking his head. “Right, of course, how could I forget? You’re a Hungarian waiter one minute and a law student the next. I,” he paused then, frowning as their surroundings finally dawned on him. “Tony, are we back where we started?”

“Well, yeah,” Tony answered easily, digging keys out of his coat pocket. “This is where I live: above the restaurant. I told you it was close.”

Steve blinked at him, and sober as he was by now, he still couldn’t keep up. “Oh,” he said first, rather eloquently. “Okay. I—listen, would it be possible for me to come upstairs and call a cab? Would you mind?”

“Yeah, sure, I don’t mind,” Tony said easily and held the door open for Steve to follow him in. “Come on up.”

“In return for waiting on tables, I get to live here rent-free,” Tony explained as he led the way up to the third floor, pushing the unlocked door open and wandering in, sure in the fact that Steve would follow him in. “It works out really well for him in taxes, actually, and then what I earn in tip I keep, it’s great—you’d be surprised how well you can do, particularly with that Hungarian thing.”

“Uh, Tony,” Steve called from the front door, and Tony popped back out of a room again to see what was up. “Your lock’s busted.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been harassing Carol for that,” Tony shrugged and went back to the room he’d first disappeared into.

Unsupervised and undirected, Steve wandered further into the apartment and sat down on a tall, backless stool. “Who’s she?”

“He,” Tony called from the other room, “he’s the owner of the Budapest. Anyway, this is my place,” he added, finally coming out to join Steve in the main room of the apartment. He had changed out of his Hungarian waiter uniform into a pair of worn jeans and some beat up concert t-shirt from a band Steve couldn’t recognize.

Steve tried not to stare, and instead cast his eyes around the room. “It’s, uh, cozy,” he settled on, “I like what you did with the… drapes.”

“Well, I’m no architect,” Tony smirked, snatching up a bottle of water and tossing a second to Steve, then leaned comfortably against the kitchen counter in a way that made Steve feel really, really guilty.

“No, it’s—” Steve stammered, his eyes lingering too long on Tony’s thighs before forcing himself to look around again. “I like what you’ve, uh, done with the negative space.”

But Tony only grinned, shaking his head a little to himself in wonderment. “You’re really something, you know that?”

Steve dared to look back at him then, a skeptical but hopeful smile dawning on his lips. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tony confirmed, pushing away from the counter and slowly crossing the room to stand in front of him. “You’re so… average.”

“Oh,” Steve sucked in a bitter breath, his gaze dropping to his shoes again. “Right, that’s—yeah. I—so, uh, maybe I could borrow your phone now? To call a cab?”

“I don’t have one. I can’t afford one, and it’s not like I know anyone here. Besides,” Tony said in a gentling voice, his smile still as bright, if not more endearing. He leaned in until he caught Steve’s eye again, then he whispered, “you and I both know you didn’t ask to use my phone.”

“No, that’s exactly what I asked you,” Steve said with a confused frown, caught between exasperation and irritation.

“No,” Tony explained sweetly, bumping his nose playfully against Steve’s jaw. “You know as well as I do that what you asked me was if you could come up to my place, throw me over the kitchen table, take me apart on your fingers, and fuck me so hard your dick would remember me for days.”

Steve’s lips parted at the first contact, from shock or from anticipation, bowing the scant distance to brush a tender answering kiss across the bridge of Tony’s nose. “You,” his tongue tripped in his surprise. “That’s what you heard?”

Tony opened his eyes at the unexpected kiss and found himself smiling up at Steve. “I did,” Tony agreed, and he pressed up, chasing Steve’s lips, but Steve straightened just enough to stay out of reach, earning himself a soft rumble of a growl.

Before his resolve flickered and died, Steve leaned back, caught Tony’s eye, and quietly asked, “Tony, may I stay the night?”

“Only if you fucking kiss m—”

Steve swept Tony up in his arms and silenced him with a hungry, needful kiss. The first catch of his teeth over Tony’s bottom lip drew an unexpected moan of surprise, a tantalizing sound that unraveled the last of Steve’s doubts. Desperate for more, to hear Tony whimpering and breathless, he bent down just enough to get his arms around Tony’s back and his thighs to lift him clear off his feet; Tony gasped in delight against his lips and rewarded him with a firm squeeze between his thighs, draping his arms across Steve’s shoulders to comb eager fingers through Steve’s soft hair.

“Bed—” Tony rasped breathlessly, but his words melted away in a heavy moan, lost to Steve’s greedy lips and sharp teeth branding his skin. With Tony’s firm squeeze on his body, Steve adjusted his arms, hiking him up further to brace his weight with one arm around Tony’s back, reducing Tony’s world to Steve’s strong fingers kneading and spreading his ass through his jeans, hard enough to bruise him through the denim. Tony’s hips stuttered up against Steve’s abdomen in a greedy pursuit of blissful friction, but Steve quickly grasped his hip and held him fast, stopping his grinding. 

“Fucking— _fuck_ you’re strong,” Tony hissed, raking blunt nails across Steve’s straining shoulders. He shot Steve a mischievous leer, then rocked his hips forward, slowly at first and building up to sweeping, full-body strokes that were nearly strong enough to dislodge Steve’s grip. Steve couldn’t help a breathless laugh when he realized what Tony was up to, and he pulled him in even closer to better enjoy Tony’s writhing body, to feel the flex of Tony's muscles, the heat of his body, and his hard cock, straining against Steve's abdomen. With slow, stumbling steps Steve made his way through to the kitchen, carrying Tony the whole way.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he murmured between pressing tender, adoring kisses down Tony’s throat. He rumbled his pleasure in response to the little moans and grunts of effort Tony made until he couldn't stand it anymore and released Tony’s hip to sweep the pad of his thumb across Tony's parted, moaning lips. With another soft push, he pressed his finger past Tony’s lips to reeled him in to taste that keening mouth.

A deep groan passed between them in Tony’s answering frustration, torn as he was between chasing Steve's long fingers or his lips. But Steve only tugged him down farther, his finger hanging precariously over Tony’s bottom lip to keep him angled down for himself, devouring his mouth with unfair advantage. His hand slipped out of the way as their kiss grew more needful, more fierce, until Tony’s hips slow grinding stuttered, thrusting desperately against Steve’s torso. He threw his head back with a gasping, guttural groan, his hands seizing aggressively on those broad shoulders, and his fingers digging deep, half-crescent bruises into the firm muscle.

Steve’s lips twitched up in a smug smile as he watched Tony gasping to catch his breath, and gently he rubbed Tony’s lower back through his sporadic shudders and languid moans. He brushed a soft, gentle kiss over Tony’s throat, then bit down greedily in the flesh of his neck. “Not done yet,” he growled, then he eased Tony’s lax body down on the kitchen table. Steve leaned back, enjoying the sight of him as Tony luxuriated in the endorphins of his afterglow, murmuring sweet nothings as he goaded Steve on to continue. Steve grinned down at him, hooking his arms around Tony's thighs and pulling him down to the edge with a single, firm tug until Tony's ass was off the table tucked safely against Steve’s hips. With an arm still curled around Tony's thigh, Steve rucked up Tony's shirt, sweeping a proprietary hand across his soft, olive skin, still untouched by Steve’s teeth and fingers.

“Damn, Tony,” he murmured under his breath, tracing the contours of Tony’s body with unhurried admiration, blunt nails scraping over his pebbling nipples. When his hands finally brushed down against Tony’s jeans, Steve hooked a few fingers under the waistband to gave it a little tug. He looked up at Tony with a question in his eyes, unwilling to continue without consent.

“Put those muscles to use, baby,” Tony murmured impishly. “I want to feel it in the morning.”

Steve could only smirk at his bravado. “As you wish.”

***

The pounding on her door woke Natasha up sometime before four on Saturday morning, and ultimately it was the thirst for revenge that convinced her to roll out of bed, grab the baseball bat from under her bed, and check the door. “Who is it?” she called, sounding sleepier than she was.

“It’s Steve,” came a somewhat muffled voice from the other side of the door. “Nat, I need to talk.”

She dropped the slugger in the umbrella stand, then unhooked the chain and two extra deadbolts so she could unlock the door and let Steve in. “What happened?” she asked first, already ready to get down to business. “Will I need to put pants on?”

“I don’t think so,” Steve muttered miserably, shuffling past her into the living room and dropping into the greedy cushions of her overstuffed couch. “I thought about what you said.”

“This isn’t the usual look a man has after sex,” Nat commented mildly, dropping down on the couch next to Steve in a similarly haphazard sprawl.

“No—no, about moving on,” he clarified, gesturing vaguely with the hand closer to her about how moving forward might look. “Selling the house in Dobbs Mill. I think you’re right: it is keeping me from having any kind of relationship if I’m still hanging on to Peggy.”

“Right, yeah,” she agreed around a big yawn, shifting a little on the couch to she could at least see Steve’s face. “Like with Denise or Patricia.”

“Or, you know, with a stranger, like that waiter from the Budapest,” Steve added, casually.

Nat blinked sleepily at him, trying to think back. “The one who couldn’t speak English?”

“A very interesting man,” Steve answered in confirmation.

“Oh, no,” she groaned, then snatched up a heavy pillow and slapped it down over his face. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

Steve yelped under the force of the pillow, rubbing his nose mildly when he finally peeled the pillow off his face. “Of all people I thought you’d be happy!”

“No, you idiot—what are you doing _here?_ ”

“Yeah,” he answered quietly. “Yeah, I know… but Nat, I woke up in the middle of the night completely tied up in knots—”

“—Now you’re talking!” she grinned wolfishly, flipping over to crawl closer and settling a pillow in front of her to rest her chin on comfortably, clearly getting ready for storytime. “Rope or ribbon? Silk ties?”

“—Anxiety, Nat!” he said and threw a hand in the air for good measure. “Metaphoric knots. Though—I mean, I wouldn’t put it past him—”

Natasha didn’t even bother to hide her disappointment. Less than impressed, she clamped a hand down over Steve’s mouth to interrupt his rambling. “So why are you here, Steve?” she wanted to know. “Tell me all the juicy details in two minutes, but anxiety isn’t what you’re supposed to feel right now.”

“I kept worrying,” he said quietly when she removed her hand, almost embarrased. “At first, I mean, maybe even sometimes during, and definitely after. I couldn’t stop feeling like I was cheating on her. I couldn’t shake it. And you know, it didn’t help that he called me average.”

“Damn, that’s harsh,” she echoed in disbelief, then, a little less confidently asked, “wait, was he talking about your dick?”

“What? No!” Steve said immediately, then seemed to frown deeply in thought. “I mean, my clothes were still on.”

“So what, is he blind then?” she deadpanned, clearly even less impressed with Tony than Steve. “You’ve got the wingspan of an 18-wheeler and the eyelashes of a giraffe.”

“I—thank you?”

“Whatever, Rogers. If you want poetry, don’t knock on my fucking door before dawn,” she told him sharply. Then after a brief silence, she asked, “So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan… the plan is that this weekend I go down to Dobbs Mill,” he said slowly, struggling to put the words together. “And I put that house and Peggy behind me. There’s nothing left for me there.”

***

The next morning when Tony woke up, he found himself alone in bed, his dishes washed and drying by the counter, and, on top of his recyclables, he found a crumpled-up napkin with the likeness of an unoccupied house just fifty miles out of town.


	3. Come as you are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Dobbs Mill.

The first snow was falling when Tony stepped out of the bus in Dobbs Mill. He turned back to thank the driver before hefting his duffle again and moving on. The town was just how Steve had described it, a throwback to traditional American ideals.

Tony wandered the town leisurely despite the cold seeping in through his battered Chucks, and the strain on his hands. There was magic all around him, and he couldn’t rush past it, couldn’t look away from it. He passed a park where flocks of children slipped and skidded across the frozen pond with shrieks of laughter, chasing each other and the falling snowflakes, all under the watchful eyes of their delighted parents. Closer to the heart of the village Tony walked past a little Christmas market nestled in the shadow of the church, where crafts and cookies and second-hand housewares were being sold. One stand had a particularly aggressive following: they offered hot chocolate with spoonfuls of cream for the children, and hot chocolate with a finger or two of something from an unmarked bottle for the adults.

He wound and climbed his way across the old streets of Dobbs Mill for hours, spellbound by the festive candles and twinkling lights, the tinsel and the gilded bows, the frosted and manicured evergreen bouquets sprucing up large, potted holly shrubs at shop fronts and residential homes alike. Every loving mistletoe ambush, every careening snowball fight, every father singing Christmas songs with his children on a walk through the town was a page out of some fairytale Tony had never believed in.

He was so busy marveling at all the festivities that he almost missed the last undecorated building of the village. Through a bald patch high up in the trees peeked a pale yellow house with a white, slanted roof. He dug the napkin out of his pocket in a hurry, as if he hadn’t memorized its every detail already.

This was it; he had found a home.

With newfound energy, he hoisted the duffle against his other shoulder and sprinted ahead, dodging branches of evergreen pines and the twigs stretching out from barren birches, until he came to a skidding stop in the circular gravel driveway of the little yellow house. The velvet ribbon drooped around the columns of the wrap-around porch, a touching reminder of how suddenly this once-loved home had been rejected and abandoned.

Tony threw his duffle up on the porch and ducked under the ribbon. He took a turn around the house, smudging the floor to ceiling glass panels as he pressed up close, drinking in every inch of the house, falling further in love the more he came to know it. Who couldn’t see how special it was; who could just throw it aside? So maybe it had not been destined to do what it was brought into this world for, but Tony could relate, and he was not going to let that stop him from loving this home. It, too, deserved a second chance.

When he had made his way around to the front door, the chrome handle snicked open under his hand and swung inwards on the first try, inviting him into this warm, cozy shelter from the winter cold.

He stepped into the glass-cased foyer that bridged the two parts of the house and closed the door behind him carefully. Beautiful, untouched porcelain tiles decorated the foyer floors in sweeping pale blue and yellow designs, artwork so delicate Tony couldn’t bring himself to tarnish them with his ratty old Chucks and the muddy sludge clinging to their soles. He toed the shoes off and kicked them out onto the porch before wandering farther into the house.

Following the foyer to the right, he walked into the bright open space of the living room, lit up through an abundance of tall, framed windows. The polished pine wood floors added a light, spacious air to the room. A pair of elegant switchback stairs on the far side of the room led up to the loft and allowed for an open but clear distinction between the great room and the kitchen, and Tony walked on through. 

He had never been one to think about kitchens; in fact, he had never been one for cooking unless it took less than four minutes in a microwave. But even he stopped and stared at the deep granite counters, the glass-door of the walk-in fridge, the cozy little breakfast nook, and the enormous island counter with its built-in stovetop that allowed enough space and storage for even the most daring cooking adventures. He took a turn around the room, peeking into the cupboards and the fridge; they opened effortlessly and without a sound, but they were also, unfortunately, bare.

***

In his dark blue peacoat and red scarf, he headed back the way he came to a small grocer he had spotted nearby. If he stuck to his budget, he could stretch his savings from the Budapest over three weeks. He didn’t need more than three weeks. He picked up a woven basket at the door and made his way down the aisles, picking up peanut butter and black raspberry jam as soon as he saw them. He was busy looking for the white bread when a pinging from the register caught his attention.

“Ah! Good morning, Hazel! Sorry I didn’t see you there,” an older man called as he ambled up to the register. “How’s Stewie doing?”

“Much better, Travis; that soup Marla sent over did wonders!” an older woman answered in a cheerful voice.

“Glad to hear it, glad to hear it,” Travis said happily, then seemed to settle into business. “So let’s see: milk, juice, cereal, and bread. We’re looking at $23.85; should I put that on your account?”

“Thank you, Travis,” Hazel said and swept up her neatly-packed paper bag. “We’ll see you and Marla at the pumpkin patch for the lighting of the tree Saturday night, won’t we?”

“Absolutely!” said Travis, “and give our best to Stewie.”

Tony stared down at the loaf of white bread in his hands, struggling through a moral and ethical calculus he wasn’t sure how he would solve. The struggle didn’t last too long. He put the white bread down in his basket then turned back through the aisles the way he had come, picking up other necessities that caught his eye before making his way up to the register.

“Potato, tomato, avocado, pint of ice cream...” Travis counted off as he tallied up Tony’s order, “cereal, tuna, steak, two packets of cookies, ravioli, bread, jam, peanut butter. So, sir, that will be $34.63.“

“Right, uh, put that on the Steve Rogers account, please,” Tony said with as much confidence as he could muster.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Steve Rogers, 611 Hillside?”

“Yeah, I know Steve,” Travis answered slowly, eyeing Tony with newfound suspicion. “He doesn’t have an account here.”

Tony rolled his eyes at himself with a self-deprecating laugh, slapping his forehead for good measure. “He—wait, I’m sorry, he said to open an account—you’re Travis, right?”

“And you are?” Travis asked in a long-suffering tone.

“Yeah, he told me about this store—great place! It reminds me of where I grew up, my grandma had a little store just like this one in a little town in Jersey.”

Travis eyed him skeptically, then with a somewhat curious drawl asked, “And your relation to Steve is…?”

“Oh gosh, where do I begin?” Tony laughed, snatching up the potato and rolling it between his hands, “you know, it all just happened so fast—would you believe he doesn’t even know I’m here? I told him I was off to see my mother, she’s just had a knee replacement—which is what you get, really, after a lifetime of dancing, off-off Broadway; how her knees even made it this long I’ll never know—but it’s not her first time coming out of surgery so she barely even needed me, so I thought, well, why don’t I come down here to get the house ready? Really surprise him for the holidays, you know? I hope I do—it’s such a fabulous house, did Steve ever show you? We’ll have to have you and Marla over, the whole town! I’ve heard so much about you all and I don’t know any of you yet! But we’ve talked about moving in here again for so long—his family, you know, his friends, he’s starting to feel the distance and it’s—and it’s Christmas, what kind of husband would I be if I don’t spur him on a little?”

Travis stared in silence long enough that Tony may have started to sweat under the collar. How did small, conservative, religious towns in New England vote on same-sex marriage again? Damn, of all the lies he could have picked...

“You’re telling me,” Travis said in a tone of wonder, “that you and Steve are hitched?”

Tony beamed, grinning ear to ear. “Yeah, I know—I can hardly believe it myself, it’s been just over three months and I still can’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d be so sure of anything at my age, life’s only started, you know? But Steve is a sure thing.”

“I beg your pardon,” a gentle voice asked from somewhere behind Tony, and he spun around to see who it was. He would have recognized her face anywhere, at practically any age. “Hi, I couldn’t help but overhear—did you say you were married to Steve? Steve Rogers?”

Travis looked between the two of them and immediately cleared the scene with an off-hand comment about how the groceries would be on Steve’s account. Clearly, Travis was a clever man.

“Yeah,” Tony answered with a big smile and a dreamy little sigh. “You know, it’s funny, the people we know in Boston already know so I don’t even get to say it that often anymore. It’s quite the rush. Steve’s my husband,” he said again with a delighted little shudder. “God, that feels nice to say; maybe I should call him that more often...”

Peggy gave him a wan smile, but she came closer and extended a friendly hand. “I’m Peggy, Peggy Carter.”

“Peggy!” cried Tony, and forgoing her extended hand pounced on her in a hug, then released her just as suddenly to take her by the arms and really look at her. “My goodness, you’re so beautiful! And I thought Steve was just being Steve—you know how he gets when he loves something, makes a mountain out of a pearl, but you he did justice—it is such a pleasure to meet you!” he quickly let her go then, and as if just remembering himself, he reached to shake her hand instead. “I’m so sorry, I just—I got excited, I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I know you, but of course to you I’m practically a stranger, I’m sorry. Let me start again: Hi, I’m Tony, Tony Edwards. Did he ever tell you about me?”

“No,” she smiled and even laughed a little out of shock, “no, I’m afraid I didn’t even know he was married.”

“We haven’t really told anyone yet,” Tony explained gently, “we only have a few friends back in Boston, you know, work colleagues—they found out because, you know, we’re there, we had a little potluck and that was that. It was such a spur of the moment thing, why not? But we didn’t know how to tell the parents—God, my parents might just try to skin me; twenty-two and hitched? They’ll kill me if they don’t meet Steve first—they’ll either love him, which would be great, or Steve would protect me. Thank God he’s built like a linebacker, right? But that’s what he gets, you know, if you choose a partner who is impulsive, too—if you’re willing to drop by city hall for a shotgun wedding between lunch at Roxy’s and dinner at the Lab, you sleep in the bed you made. Or, well yeah, he does actually make the bed, I’m shit at that.”

“That’s Steve, alright,” Peggy smiled wistfully, but she kept looking at Tony as if she didn’t know what to think of him. “Tell me, how is he doing? Is he well?”

“Steve? Oh yeah, he’s great—you’d know! He’s been so busy lately, at work and all, you go to bed and you’ll never know if he’ll be there when you wake up,” Tony said with a shrug. “But he’s doing something he’s passionate about, and how many people can say that?”

“Steve always did lead with the heart,” said Peggy with a brighter smile. “And you’re now living in the house?”

“We’re starting to, I’m just getting groceries now,” and as if he just realized what he was doing there, Tony turned around and picked up the two bags Travis had packed up for him. “Next it’ll be plates, houseware things—pots and pans. The Christmas market seemed a good place to pick some things up.”

“Of course, yes, but then if you would like new things, the hardware store is right across the street,” Peggy suggested, showing him through the store window. “Would you like me to introduce you? Kim is terrific, she’s a great person if you run into trouble with the house before Steve joins you.”

“That’s so thoughtful of you, Peggy, thank you,” Tony beamed, one paper bag in each arm. “You won't be late anywhere?”

“Not at all,” she said, and without asking reached for one of the bags Tony was carrying to help lighten his load. “Besides, Kim is a good friend of Sarah’s, you should get to know her: you’ll learn plenty about Steve you’re likely never to have heard before.”

Tony laughed in surprise, shaking his head a little at the thought. “Is that not a little unfair? Me hearing stories about him when he’s not here to defend himself?”

“Heavens, no,” Peggy said with a mischievous grin. “All's fair in love and war, is it not?”

“I’m more of a world peace kind of guy,” Tony confessed, smiling still but with some effort.

***

With Peggy’s help, Tony got together everything he might have wanted for the kitchen in Kim’s hardware store; they even had a fancy percolator that could get him a decent black coffee at the push of a button. All of it on Steve’s account, and the promise to bring Steve by as soon as he got into town. To Kim’s tall, strapping assistant’s (and, subsequently, Tony’s) frustration, Peggy even offered to give him and his purchases a ride home. When they finally parted, she promised she would call again for dinner once Tony had had a chance to settle in.

Tony made quick work of putting away his groceries before he dashed out of the house. He still didn’t have a place to sleep, but thanks to the five magic words - _put it on Steve’s account_ \- his budgeting had suddenly become much less critical.

He walked down to the village square where the church market was still underway. Tables with space heaters were set up in unpredictable maze-like patterns around the church. Ten dollars got him two heavy, home-made quilts by Helen, Steve’s childhood art teacher, and another five dollars got him three woolen socks with snowmen and reindeer stitched around the ankles.

Halfway through the maze, he came across what must have been the plushest, most comfortable armchair he had ever seen, and when he sat down and let the back recline and the foot-rest pop up, he never really wanted to get up again. He might have pulled it off, too, when a tall, elderly man came by to look in on him.

“Do you work here?” Tony grinned up at him, hands tucked behind his head comfortably.

“Yes, sir, I do,” the old man answered, his bushy eyebrows knitting together in thought. “Can I help you?”

“I think you might,” Tony admitted, kicking his feet out on the footrest to see how sturdy the chair was. “I think I could live in this chair, it feels fabulous.”

“Really?” the old man asked, frowning a little more deeply and eyeing the chair. “I don’t see how.”

Tony smiled and instead asked, “How much?”

“Twenty dollars,” the man said promptly.

“How about I give you fifteen?”

“Well, no,” the man said, not unkindly. “The price is twenty dollars.”

“I tell you what,” Tony tried again, “I’ll give you seventeen in cash.”

“We only take cash,” the man explained patiently.

“Do you deliver?”

“That we do,” he smiled, “free of charge.”

“Alright, you’ve got a deal!” Tony grinned and hopped out of the chair. “It’s 611 Hillside; do you think you could have it delivered by tonight?”

The old man stared at him, stunned. “What was that address again?”

“611 Hillside, that little house that Steve Rogers built?”

“But that house is vacant.”

“Well, we’re moving back,” Tony smiled, “I know it’s been a bit of a surprise, we haven’t told anyone—it’s really a surprise for him, too, but that’s the plan. I’m Tony,” he said more calmly then and offered his hand to the old man. “I’m his husband.”

“I’m Joseph,” the old man answered. “I’m his father.”

***

Joseph Rogers turned out to be Dr. Rogers, principal of Dobbs Mill’s K-12 school system, and overseer of the life-long compulsory education of about three-hundred students every year. Within half an hour of their meeting, Tony was back to a fairly familiar scene: explaining himself in the principal’s office, except this time it was to his in-laws. He and Sarah - evidently Steve’s mother - sat in the guest chairs facing the imperious principal’s desk, behind which Joseph sat silently, observing him like a hawk. 

“I am so sorry, I’m afraid this is all my fault,” Tony admitted before they could voice any questions. “I’m the one who, after Steve just swept me off my feet, I—I was the one who asked him if we couldn’t wait and see if it would, if it would work out. Steve—Steve’s got it figured out, you know, he’s doing something he loves and I couldn’t be happier for him, prouder of him, but for me, I, I...” Tony cleared his throat and tried to find his smile again. “Sometimes, I worry I’m just a burden to him. I’m still going through my education, you know, I—I worked a lot to get by, I wasn’t as directed as Steve, and I—I wanted him to be sure before we told our families.”

“But you’ve been married for months,” Sarah noted, a little bewildered, and Joseph got up from behind his chair to pace beside her. “When were you going to be ‘sure’?”

“I was hoping I would be out of school,” Tony told her, “I didn’t want my parents to think he derailed my life, that we were rushing, that I’d lose track of my education because I fell in love and got crazy—and I didn’t want you to think I was using your son to pay my way; I’m not after him for the money, but he is generous, and so thoughtful, he takes care of nearly everything. You really have raised the most wonderful, loving man I’ve ever met.”

Somewhere in Tony’s rambling, Joseph had stopped pacing and stared at Tony instead in open shock. Sarah looked like she was going to go red from holding her breath.

“Uh,” Joseph finally said when he noticed the silence had stretched on for too long. “Ah, Sarah. Any comment?”

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. “I just don’t believe it.”

Tony blinked at her. “You don’t? Which—which part?”

“That he can be so insensitive!” she cried, looking up at Joseph in anger. “So irresponsible! How could he do such a thing?”

“Because it’s just like him, Sarah,” Joseph muttered, shaking his head to himself and starting to pace again. “The boy hasn’t changed a bit! What does he even think marriage is? This question certainly goes for you, too, young sir,” he growled with increasing anger, picking up a piece of chalk and pulling a rolling blackboard over to clarify his argument by writing out the question as he asked Tony: “What do young people today think marriage is?”

Tony stared at him for a moment, glanced in Sarah’s direction for support, then looked back up at Joseph in confusion. “I—I’m confused, are you asking me to write an essay?”

“It’s because of our little dispute, isn’t it? Is _that_ why he kept this marriage a secret?” Joseph asked, apropos of nothing, and he strode right up to Tony with his fists at his waist, and all at once the lanky old man didn’t really look so lanky anymore; he was as tall as Steve and his shoulders nearly that broad, and even without all the muscle to fill in the spaces, Tony would put good money on Dr. Rogers picking him up by the scruff of his neck if he really put his back into it.

“Ah,” Tony stalled, trying to school his face into a less concerned expression. “I’m afraid it is. He might not admit it, but I think you’re right. But he, he really doesn’t—” Tony cleared his throat and tried again, “he feels bad about it, Dr. Rogers.”

“You’d never know it to talk to him!” Joseph said in rising anger, and he walked away from Tony to pace by the window.

“Maybe that’s because you never talk to him, Joe,” Sarah said with just as much bite. “When was the last time you spoke to him? When was the last time you reached out to him?”

“He’s the one who never calls or visits.”

“Mrs. Rogers, Dr. Rogers,” Tony interrupted from the safety of his chair, “please. Steve is really sorry about—about… you know, everything,” Tony gestured with his as if to encompass _everything_ , “it hurts him, he talks about it all the time—he wants to come home to visit, he really does, but it’s difficult with this between you and it’s—in fact, we just talked about it the other night, before I left for Jersey to visit my mother, and it’s—it was just so much that he cried. It’s Christmas, you know? Everyone is with family, and we… he doesn’t feel like we can.”

“My God, my son,” Sarah gasped softly, her hand pressing against rising anxiety in her chest. “Did you hear that, Joe?”

“I’m standing right here, Sarah.”

“My son cried,” she said with a slow shake of her head, as if she could never have imagined her Steve brought to tears. She took a moment to absorb the news, then she turned to Joseph with steel in her eyes. “Why don’t you pick up the phone and call the boy?”

“Uh, no, Mrs. Rogers, wait,” Tony interjected as carefully a she could, “I don’t think that would be such a good idea. It’s a sensitive situation—he hurts a lot even when he talks about it, and I, I think it might be best if you maybe communicate with him through me for the time being? Besides, he thinks I’m in Jersey right now, so this way whatever you ask he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t suspect it’s from you, you know?”

Sarah nodded in immediate agreement, and she even came to smile at Tony with encouragement, but then she looked up at Joseph, hopeful. “Joe?”

“Well, I supposed,” Joseph started to say, looking down at the floor and crossing his arms, then just wrapping his arms around himself, until finally with a huff he swallowed his pride. “Oh, for God’s sake, please just tell the boy to come home.”


	4. Getting to know you (Getting to know all about you)

The armchair, as it turned out, was good enough to live in. In the cozy temperature of the house, all Tony really needed was a sheet and one of the quilts from the market to nestle into the chair all night. He slept so comfortably that even the rising sunshine and the little birds pecking at the windows couldn't wake him.

But soon the sound of the pecking birds became more incessant, until it grew into distinct knocking on the glass. Accepting his fate, Tony sleepily called for whoever it was to come in, giving in to the urge of a satisfying, back-popping stretch.

“Good morning!” called a vaguely familiar voice from the door. By the time Tony’s brain caught up and realized who it belonged to Sarah had walked into the grand room.

“Hm? Morning already?” he murmured and sat up in the chair in his effort to wake up, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The quilt and the blanket pooled delicately around his lap as he stretched, lazy and unworried; after all, the last thing on his mind was the state of his bruised skin, or how easily Sarah might have recognized the imprint of her son's fingers.

As soon as Sarah caught sight of Tony she yelped and hid her eyes behind a white envelope. She couldn’t seem to apologize fast enough. “Tony! I’m sorry, I should have called ahead, I didn’t think you would still be asleep.”

“Mrs. Rogers, don’t be silly, it’s great to—” he was interrupted by a big yawn, and he scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “'m sorry, but uh, come in, it’s—we don’t have much furniture yet, but it’s great to have you, come in.”

He struggled through his drowsy haze and got to his feet to greet her properly—surely his mother in law deserved a hug. When he stood up, the quilt and blanket drop to the floor at his feet. It took a moment for the alarming reality to set in, but it was the fastest he had ever woken up. 

“I—I’m, one minute,” he gathered the blanket and clutched it at his hip as a makeshift cover, then swept up the quilt to cocoon himself with from head to toe for good measure. “Please, uh, please make yourself comfortable? I’ll get dressed,” he promised and picked up his duffle as he darted past her to the attached bedroom.

It took him seconds to get dressed, but several minutes to gather the courage to join Sarah again. By the time he finally came out, she was standing in the middle of the living room and looking around the crown molding in a stunned sort of amazement.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tony said with a smile, and when she turned to look at him, she, too, smiled brightly. A little hesitantly she held her arms out for him, and unable to resist, Tony crossed the great room and gave her a hug. 

“If you ever doubt that your son’s a hopeless romantic, just invite yourself over.”

She laughed and squeezed him return, shaking her head a little at the thought. “I know he’s a romantic; he always was.” When she pulled back from the hug, she turned the envelope she’d been hiding behind minutes earlier in Tony’s direction and offered it to him.

“What’s this?” he wondered and took a peek, then immediately pushed it back to her. “Oh, no, Mrs. Rogers.”

“Oh, yes, Tony,” she answered with a laugh, pressing it back into his hands. “It’s just a little something to get you two started.”

“Mrs. Rogers, it’s too much—”

“Tony, it really isn’t,” she insisted, and gently held his wrist to stop him trying to give back the check again. “He is our only son. Rather, he _was_ our only son.”

Tony sucked in a slow, stuttering breath, and he couldn’t seem to blink. But Sarah’s smile only grew, and she looked at him like his was a face worth adoring. Gently, she reached to brush some of his bedhead out of his face

“Come on, now,” she said eagerly, squeezing his shoulder gently. “Get ready and we’ll go find some good ways to spend that money. But first, breakfast. You can’t face the day without a good breakfast. Did Steve ever tell you about the pancakes at the Betty’s Eatery?” she wondered, already walking in the direction of the door with Tony trailing behind her like a faithful duckling. “He would probably want to be here the first time you have their pancakes, but this is your first morning here, and we have a long day ahead: you need the best. So get—where’s your coat, honey? Get dressed—take your time, I’ll be in the car.”

***

“You know, I’m very happy with what you’ve done,” Sarah told him almost as soon as Tony had closed the passenger door behind him, and he struggled for a moment to figure out to what she referred. His hair was combed down into submission, his patchy five o’clock shadow was shaved away, and he may have wiped off the worst of the smudges around his Chucks, but which of these she felt the need to praise he couldn’t quite figure out.

“You are?” he asked cautiously once she had pulled the car into gear and they were driving, hoping the driving would distract her from his confusion.

“I really am,” she assured him, “it’s Christmas, after all. It is a time for forgiveness, and Joe and Steve, they’re too similar… you know, they butt heads, and neither of them wants to apologize. He was our only son, and I don’t know if Steve would be back for the holidays if you weren’t making the decision for him,” she added in a quieter voice, wringing the wheel a little anxiously. “And Joe may be a bit of a stick in the mud—when he sees you, he might even tell you you shouldn’t have lied to Steve about going to see your mother when you’re here getting the house ready—but he is happy too, so don’t let him intimidate you with his nonsense.”

“Mrs. Rogers, you make it sound so altruistic,” he said with a wry twist of his lips, but she held up a hand right there to interrupt him.

“Remember what you were about to say honey, but one thing first: please call me Sarah,” she trailed off then, a little distracted as she reached to brush some hair off his forehead again. “Sweetheart, do we need to get you a haircut? Or is this some kind of statement?”

“I—what, uh, what do you think?” he asked sincerely, ducking his head a little to try to catch his reflection in the side mirror. “I never really—the time, you know, it just doesn’t seem so important.”

“Well,” Sarah said in a way that suggested she knew time was never the issue. “It’s a good thing we have a lot of time on our hands right now, isn’t it? Let me call Jackie, she’s great; she’s Bucky’s mom. She was a hairdresser in Boston for many years, but ever since Bucky started his own business she’s been helping him with the grooming at his office.”

“Uh—grooming?”

“Yes, the dogs and cats—you know, they even had a little Angora bunny last month, the cutest thing I’ve seen since Steve tried to teach the dog finger painting,” she dug her cell phone out of her jacket pocket quickly and swiped the screen open before handing her phone to Tony. “If you go to the photos you’ll see it, I had to save it.”

Tony dutifully opened her photos and swiped through until he got to [a bunny](http://boredomtherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/01-wally-the-angora-rabbit.jpg). “Oh. My. God,” Tony whimpered and stuffed his fist into his mouth to keep from squeaking. “I want it; no, I need it.”

“I don’t think it’s up for adoption,” she said with a soft laugh.

“Not the rabbit: the haircut!” Tony turned the phone around and held it beside his face. “It’s perfect.”

Sarah’s laugh took on another life and squeezed his shoulder in a sudden burst of affection. “Honey, if your bedhead was anything to go by, that already is your natural state of being. We need to reach a slightly tamer version of that.”

“Clearly Jackie is a complete genius, I love her work and I trust her completely. Nobody else will touch my hair, ever.”

“That’s right,” Sarah agreed. Soon enough, she pulled into a public lot across from the Eatery. “Before we go in, there are two things we need to be clear on. First, this will not be a secret, per se, but we don’t have to advertise it to Steve.”

“Understood.”

“Good. Two,” she counted to her middle finger, “if Betty is in today, we’ll have no chance of keeping this visit a secret. Betty and Steve get along like a house on fire: you might as well tell him yourself.”

“Got it,” Tony said with a frown, walking around the car and following her attentively. “So, uh, what would Steve usually get here?”

Something about that question must have been ludicrous, because Sarah suddenly bubbled with laughter. She looped her arm around Tony’s as they walked up to the diner and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “My goodness, honey. This is Steve we’re talking about: he eats like a starved horse. He usually eats half the menu.”

Tony ducked his head and rubbed at his nose with the hand Sarah wasn’t holding so tenderly, trying to will his blush away while she was busy getting them a table. A high school kid greeted them both with practiced cheer and led them to a booth with a view of the park where children were learning how to skate and drive their parents nuts with pride and anxiety simultaneously. Sarah shuffled into her side of the booth and called his name a number of times before Tony snapped out of it and looked away from the overwhelmingly happy scenes unfolding in the city park.

“Do you drink coffee, sweetheart?”

“Only by the hoddle,” he smiled innocently, but Sarah rolled her eyes and ordered two cups instead before turning back to him, studying him with a strict expression.

“If Steve passed his bad habits on to you...”

Tony laughed at the implication, and he couldn’t deny it fast enough. “Did it to myself, Mrs. Rogers—Sarah!” he corrected himself quickly, stammering with a worried smile. “I was more coffee than water in college. The habit stuck.”

“I remember those days,” Sarah sighed, shaking her head at the memory. “You said a little about your education yesterday. What are you studying?”

“Electrical engineering,” he said, “I started my graduate degree, but I,” he interrupted himself with a frown, unsure of why he even said that. “I took a leave of absence last year.”

“But that’s understandable, Tony,” Sarah said gently. “You’re so young, honey. There’s more to life than an education. Live a little,” she added with a grin, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “Now go on, we’ve got all day to talk—what are you having?”

Tony skimmed the menu carefully. “If Steve was here, what would he suggest?”

“If Steve was here...” Sarah mused, looking over the menu. “I’d say his favorite breakfast here is that belly bacon sandwich with the fried egg and avocado, two scrambled eggs, and a stack of smashin’ pumpkins pancakes.”

“Well, I walked right into that one,” Tony muttered and Sarah laughed. With a long-suffering smile, he tried again. “For us mere mortals who don’t turn carbs and fat to pecs and lats…”

“If you eat pork belly, I’d say the sandwich is a Dobbs Mill must,” said Sarah with a big smile, and Tony agreed in a heartbeat.

When a waiter came around to deliver their coffee, Sarah perked up with a big smile. “What—Sam! What are you doing here?”

“Well, rumor has it you’ve got a special guest in town, Mrs. R,” Sam drawled, eyeing Tony with a knowing smirk. “Thought I’d see for myself.”

“Word gets around fast,” she smiled at Tony. “Tony, honey, this is Sam—Sam Wilson, Betty’s son. Sam, this is Tony Edwards, Steve’s husband.”

“Get out,” Sam blurted out before Tony had a chance to say hello. “You’re married to Steve?”

“I’m afraid so,” Tony answered with a grin.

“Steve Rogers?” Sam clarified, “six foot something, blond, all-American boy?”

“One and the same.”

“Steve Rogers who only had eyes for women his whole life?”

“Now, Sam,” Sarah cautioned him gently. “Steve was always honest about his orientation.”

“Sure, Mrs. R,” Sam said, though he still looked skeptical. “I’ve just never seen it, that’s all.”

“That’s not unfair,” Tony said with a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “The way Steve tells it, he was Peggysexual for most of his life.”

At that, Sam’s frown faded and he chuckled quietly. “Yeah, alright. So it’s true then, you’re moving back here?”

“I’m dragging about 250 pounds of indecision, but I’m trying,” Tony said with a little shrug. “I think it would be good for him.”

“How’s he doing? He working for Mosby still?”

“Yeah, Mr. Mosby took Steve and the others out to dinner two nights ago,” Tony told him proudly. “He doesn’t sleep much and fourteen months of the year I’m third wheeling it to his office desk, but he couldn’t be happier. The project he’s working on right now is his baby. You should ask him about it when he comes into town; his face lights up like the Fourth of July.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” Sam said with a big smile. “So what’s the family Rogers doing today? Christmas shopping?”

“A little of that, perhaps,” Sarah evaded smoothly, “but mostly we’re getting Tony settled in.”

“The Pe—yellow house? But that’s got no furniture,” Sam frowned, looking between Tony and Sarah. “My shift starts at ten, but you call anytime if you need a truck or help carrying anything. I’ll send some guys down.”

Sarah turned to Tony with her brows raised in cheeky delight. “What do you say, Tony? How would you feel about a band of big firemen helping us move the furniture?”

“How is this even a question?” Tony scoffed, looking from Sarah to Sam. “Yes. Indubitably, yes. Is there a shirtless option?”

“It’s December, so I can’t make any promises,” Sam drawled, but his deadpan expression soon cracked and he grinned with a shake of his head. “I gotta head out, but it was good to see you—good luck today. I’ll leave this here,” he added and sat the pot of coffee down for them, “and just so you know: Ma’s said breakfast is on the house, so there’s no point arguing with the staff.”

Sarah puffed up with what would undoubtedly looked like an argument, but Tony reached out to gently touch her elbow before he addressed Sam. “That’s very generous, thank you.”

Sam stared for a moment in surprise before he suddenly laughed. “Man, that’s usually a five minute ordeal! Thank you. I’ll see you around—and I’m telling you, call anytime if you need help! I mean it, Mrs. R. If I hear you’ve carried anything heavy...”

“I won’t; we’ll call, Sam,” she assured him. “Thank you for offering—and for breakfast. You tell Betty she only robbed me of treating my son to our first breakfast together, but I’m sure I could forgive her in five to eight months.”

“That’s the spirit!” Sam laughed, reaching to hand Tony his card. “Hey Tony, if you need anything—and if you can’t reach my cell, call the station; they’re good people.”

Tony gave a jerking nod and accepted the card as casually as he could. Sarah and Sam continued talking and saying goodbye, but Tony sat in silence and stared reverently at the card he’d been given.

“Sweetheart?” he heard Sarah call, and he looked up in a hurry. “Tony, are you alright?”

“I—yeah, sure,” Tony assured her quietly, but then he trailed off into silence for several moments. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “Is this normal? Do—do people just give their numbers to strangers in case… in case?”

“If they want to,” Sarah answered after a pause. “But Tony, don’t be mistaken: you’re not a stranger here. You’re family.”

***

“I didn’t like it!” Tony insisted even as he followed Sarah along the walkway to the veterinary clinic. “You can’t put this on me, I was very clear: I didn’t like it.”

“Your face was saying otherwise, my dear,” she brushed him off patiently.

“I’m going to tell Dr. Rogers,” he warned her. “The corner couch was 360 dollars less and it was very comfortable—”

“And only half of Steve would have fit,” Sarah finished for him. “I know my son, Tony. He’s going to be on that couch eventually, and he sleeps like a starfish.”

Tony frowned in mild confusion but stretched past her to open the door for her, then followed her in. “But Sarah, the mon—oh, damn,” he whispered under his breath in sudden surprise, taken back by the overly enthusiastic decorations of the clinic. There was no Christmas tree, or otherwise enticing targets for their pet patients, but tinsel and tasteful electric candles brightened every window, nook, and cranny, and little holiday treats for children, pets, and adults were available at every desk.

A cheerful little fireplace in the far side of the waiting room crackled softly, providing a pleasant and naturally relaxing atmosphere to the room. Where one might have expected benches or hard seats for waiting pet owners, there were plush, pleather waiting chairs and little cushioned beds of various shapes neatly settled against the wall or around the chairs. Woven baskets at each end of the clinic had selections of toys and blankets for their pet patients.

From behind the closest door they heard a small chorus of little yips and bird songs, but otherwise the clinic appeared empty. Sarah gently took Tony by the arm and led him to the two armchairs by the fireplace.

“You should have seen this place before Jackie moved in,” she told him with a happy sigh, relaxing back into a chair by the fire and stretching her feet out. “You’d think you were back in the USSR or something; Bucky’s great with animals, better than anyone, but the man is a hopeless decorator.”

“Oh man,” Tony murmured from a few feet away in his own armchair. “Sarah, you’ve gotta ask Jackie where she got these chairs.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Mike built them. I’m sure he built everything here,” she mused. “Were you thinking of the dining room?”

“The reading nook over the bedroom,” he said softly, sounding halfway asleep.

Sarah laughed and swatted his arm gently. “You sure about that? Seems like you’d get no reading done in that chair, honey.”

The front door opened, and in skipped the happiest, most effervescent little blonde woman Tony had ever seen. “Whom do we have here!” she cooed as soon as she saw him, hurrying over to them.

Sarah was up on her feet at once and wrapped Jackie up in a big hug, and Tony stood up and looked on as they exchanged some greeting in a variation of English too fast and too abbreviated for him to understand. Eventually they both turned to Tony, and Sarah introduced them in standard English. “Tony, this is Jacqueline Barnes, Bucky’s mother; Jackie, this is Tony Edwards, Steve’s _husband_ ,” she finished with a meaningful look, and without warning, Jackie pounced on him for a hug.

“You handsome devil!” Jackie crowed, then stepping back to briefly cup his face in her hands and get a better look of him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tony! Welcome to Dobbs Mill, I’m so excited—everyone, we’re so excited you’re here. What a good thing you’re doing for Steve. But honey,” she suddenly derailed herself with a worried frown, looking at his face more carefully. “Are you hungry at all? You’re rail thin. Sarah, I’ve got some chicken salad in the fridge, how about some lunch?”

“We’ve got a lasagna waiting for us at home,” Sarah declined politely. “But why don’t you and Mike come over for dinner tomorrow? We’ll take a walk and show Tony around the pumpkin patch.”

“I’ll bring the wine,” Jackie promised, then seemed to realize something and turned back to Tony. “Do you like red wine, Tony?”

“I enjoy all wines, Mrs. Barnes,” Tony agreed without hesitation, but still she frowned.

“It is either Jackie or Aunt Jackie,” she corrected him, then with a little shudder explained, “Mrs. Barnes is my mother-in-law. I called her that from the day I met her, because she seemed cold and distant. Turns out, I wasn't wrong.”

“Jackie,” Sarah soothed with a suppressed laugh. “You said now would be a good time to touch up Tony’s hair a little...”

“Yes, as soon as Bucky’s done in there—it shouldn’t be long. Have you showed him around yet?” When Sarah shook her head, Jackie turned to Tony with a big smile. “It’s a tiny place, but there’s a room in the back for overnight visitors and the village animal shelter. Do you like pets?”

“I’ve—yeah,” Tony said cautiously, worried how honest he could be in his answer. “I always wanted one, but—well. Dad doesn't believe in pets, and mom was allergic to cats.”

“Then let me introduce you,” she beamed and took Tony by the hand to lead him away. Sarah trailed a few feet behind them, and she gave him an encouraging smile any time Tony glanced back for her. Jackie took them into a room with cages for dogs, cats, and various other pets like birds and hamsters. Most of the cages were empty and bare, but for the four occupants in the room whose homes had cozy nests and bundles of toys to keep them occupied. One large cockatoo practiced all twelve words it knew in the far corner near the window, while a large, old lab snoozed on his oversized bed. A young English Sheepdog bounced and yipped at the possible company, much to the distaste of a large free-roaming Maine Coon, who seemed quite displeased with the added occupants in the room.

“This is Oscar, Travis and Marla’s little sweetie,” Jackie said and paused by the lab’s cage. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he got a little frisky with a pack of raccoons yesterday, so he’s staying a few nights with us. The General over there,” she said and pointed to the cockatoo, “he’s with us for the holidays; Hank and Randall couldn’t find someone to take him while they're away, so Bucky offered. And [this little egg](https://ppg-web-external.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/zinnia/Old_English_Sheepdog_puppy.jpg),” she cooed and walked on to the sheepdog’s cage, opening it with practiced ease and picking him up. “Randall actually found this little darling out in the country on his way to drop off the General, but he’s got no chip, no collar, and nobody’s come by to fetch him. Can't be more than five months old,” she held the lanky bundle of fur to Tony expectantly, then showed him to the big playpen. “There’s lots of balls and ropes in there, if you’d like to play with him.”

Tony looked at the eager dog wriggling with boundless excitement in his arms. He really could only guess where the head was by his black nose and his pink tongue, since everything else just seemed to be a giant mop of white and grey fur. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one—yet,” Jackie added in an effort to stay positive. “Bucky calls him the Klutzbucket, but he really has no business naming things. He named that poor cat Ohio. I don’t think she’s forgiven him yet.”

Tony’s face split in a grin as the dog got even more ridiculous, and he struggled to hold on to the squirming, long-limbed puppy who seemed absolutely set on climbing onto Tony’s shoulders to lick and nibble on his face. Without really making a decision he climbed into the little play pen so he could release the dog and offer him a better chew toy than Tony’s ear.

“We’ll be in the waiting room,” Sarah told him, and he said something in acknowledgement that wasn’t nearly as important as the furry little creature trying to tackle him down to comfortable licking range.

He shucked off his jacket and tossed it across an empty cage nearby and sat down with a colorful rope he’d dug out of a basket. Immediately, he received a lapful of excited, gangling dog. “Come here, you little monster,” he urged him as soon as the dog discovered and latched on to the rope, bounding out of Tony's lap for room to play. “Pu—oh, hell—oh! Someone’s in it to win it!”

The dog pulled for all he was worth, growling even as his bottom end wriggled in a frenzy. Tony growled back just as gleefully, reaching with his free hand to distract the little creature with tickles and caresses. When the dog yipped at the injustice of Tony’s advantage, he lost his grip and tumbled back in a sprawl of paws and ears. Without missing a beat, the dog rolled right back up to his paws and pounced into Tony’s lap, reaching for his face again.

“You insatiable little monster,” he said with a laugh, scrubbing at the puppy’s ears, even catching its muzzle in one hand to blow a raspberry over his nose. The noise surprised and delighted the dog, and he squirmed with unusual fervor, scrambling further into Tony’s arms.

While juggling and keeping the dog occupied with one hand, Tony reached for a different toy in the basket, and soon he had a soft, squishy ball to entertain the puppy with again. “There we go,” he growled playfully into the top of the dog’s head, coddling him in his lap while he held the large, soft ball for the little one to dig his puppy teeth into. “Take it apart baby, show it who’s boss...”

But either the ball wasn’t meant for such eager biting, or the dog had particularly vicious teeth. With a jerk of his head, the dog tore the ball with a sudden pop. A gelatinous liquid burst over the dog’s face and all over Tony’s hands, and they both froze in shock. The puppy squirmed, pawing awkwardly at the liquid as it dripped down into his fur, and in the next breath he howled in despair and confusion.

“Oh no, sweetheart, no, no, no,” he soothed, drawing the howling puppy in securely against his body to make sure he didn’t hurt himself while Tony used his shirt to wipe the goopy gel out of the puppy’s face. “Who does this, who makes fucked up toys like this? If Hammer’s in chew toys, I'll kill him, honey lamb, don't cry. Don’t cry, we’ll get you cleaned up baby, don’t cry.”

The door to the boarding room was thrown open and Bucky stormed in with a cold, unforgiving chill. “What is going on in here?” Bucky demanded, scanning the room in search of the young dog. When he caught sight of Tony holding the sheepdog in his arms, he growled so loudly Tony heard him from across the room.

“You. Get your hands off that dog right now.”

The dog quieted and recoiled from Bucky’s visceral anger, shrinking in Tony’s arms.

“The toy broke in his mouth,” Tony hurried to explain as he tried to hold the dog’s head still and get the last of the gross matter off his face. “I don’t think he’s hurt, he—there you are, there we go—he’s just scared.”

Bucky loomed over him and the dog right outside the pen, arms crossed over his chest with a murderous expression. It didn’t take Tony much longer to get the dog’s face cleaned, and with most of it out of his eyes and mouth, the dog sat more calmly while Tony turned his ruined shirt inside out to get the last of the gel off the dog’s paws.

Satisfied with the way Tony handle the dog, Bucky eyed Tony himself more critically. “Let me guess,” he drawled, taking in the countless hickies and hand-shaped bruises. “You’re Steve’s husband, aren’t you?”

Tony frowned in confusion, but he didn’t take his attention off the dog who was now starting to cuddle again. “That’s a good boy,” he soothed gently, dropping his shirt and ruffling the dog’s puppy coat. Satisfied that the dog was settling into his happy self with his charming, short attention span, Tony looked up at Bucky again. “Who told you?”

Bucky stared at him for a second. “Kid, have you looked in a mirror? You have Property of Steve Rogers all over you.”

Tony closed his eyes as realization dawned, then he glanced down at his shirt with a rising, unsettling anxiety. Something about the situation must have triggered a sense of sympathy in Bucky, and instead of relishing Tony’s humiliation, he pulled his scrubs over his head and took off the long-sleeved t-shirt off he wore underneath. He held it out for Tony.

“There,” he said in an unreadable monotone. “Put that on.”

“Thank you,” Tony whispered, releasing the dog gently on the floor so he could cover himself.

“Don’t mention it,” Bucky said and shrugged, already pulling on his scrubs again. “I’ll take care of the Klutzbucket, mom’s waiting for you in the other room. Are you taking him home tonight?”

“I—I don’t know if I should,” Tony admitted even as he reached for the dog, clearly wanting to say yes. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Steve.”

“If Steve’s your only concern, you’re fine,” Bucky brushed off his flimsy excuse. “I’ll take care of him. But that dog needs a home. If you have the space and you care about his happiness, you should take him.”

Tony watched the dog thoughtfully as Bucky spoke, and even though he vaguely knew it was a bad idea, he couldn’t remember in the moment why that was. He reached out a hand to the dog, and the puppy lavished his palm with kisses, bouncing up to sit directly in front of him for more attention. “Alright, you little loser,” he finally told the dog. “Looks like you found a forever family.”

***

By the time they got away from Jackie’s gossiping and Bucky’s terse but incredibly thorough directions on how to care for a young dog, it was well past dinner time. Sarah hustled Tony around the kitchen with plates and utensils to set the table while she got a salad thrown together and the lasagna re-heated. With some wine on the table, Sarah, Joseph, and Tony sat down for their first family dinner. The dog, already fed, slept behind Tony’s chair, drooling over a rawhide he had been chewing on moments earlier. 

While they ate, Sarah told Joseph about the day they had had, including some side-notes and opinions Tony had no context for, incrementally building on the number of times she drew Tony in to talking more. 

“And I invited Jackie and Mike out to the pumpkin patch tomorrow,” she added as she finished recapping their day. “That way we can take Tony to see the tree lighting, the fireworks—and we’ll all be there when he meets the village. They’re all already talking about you, have you noticed?”

Tony put concerted effort into _not_ rolling his eyes, and instead he smiled. “Well, they’re not subtle about it.”

“I bet it’s Travis,” she said mostly to herself, “that gossip.”

The sudden and unexpected shift in her expression caught between exasperation and irritation, an expression he had seen mirrored on Steve's face many times only last night, and the familiarity of it pulled a laugh from Tony before he could stop himself. “Oh god—sorry, I,” he tried to explain himself when Sarah and Joseph looked at him. “You looked just like him—or, I guess Steve looks like you? I—when he’s frustrated with something he can’t figure out, he makes the same expression.”

It took Sarah a moment to disconnect from her previous thoughts to really understand what Tony was saying, but beside her Joseph chuckled heartily. “They resolve their problems in precisely the same way,” he agreed, watching Sarah with an affectionate smile. “They strike head-on, every time. Very brave, both of them.”

“Stop it, Joseph. They’re talking about our sons,” she admonished, still unwilling to let the thought go.

“Everyone has been nice so far,” Tony promised her, trying to mitigate her anger. “And—and you said Mike built Bucky’s office furniture, I’m excited to meet him. Maybe he’ll want some help? I used to build—well, anything I could get my hands on, and I haven’t been able to for a while—our apartment in Boston isn’t so big, and the time, you know, we don’t have much time to spare, either.”

Sarah’s expression changed again when Tony brought up time, but Joseph, unaware of their earlier understanding, didn’t bat an eye. “Mike always has some project on his hands. If you are interested, I am sure he would welcome your help, Tony. Or allow you to work in his shop, should you have your own work to do.”

“Is there anything you’re thinking of for the house, dear?” Sarah wondered. “Maybe we could meet them there tomorrow.” 

“Well, the closets and kitchen pantry could use smarter shelving,” Tony said, then reached down to scratch at the puppy’s ears. “And the Klutzbucket needs a way out to the yard.”

“What that dog needs is a better name,” Joseph noted, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. 

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, his eyes lingering on the dog some moment longer before looking up at Sarah and Joseph with a cautiously hopeful expression. “What do you think about Theodore Roosevelt Jr.?”

“Roosevelt already is a Junior,” Joseph told him without missing a beat, as if he had been reading it out of a textbook, and beside him Sarah could only roll her eyes with a good-natured smile. Both of them looked around the table to take another considering look at the puppy, as if to decide whether it looked like a Theodore Roosevelt or not. “It might suit him. However, unless you are naming him after the former President, the appropriate name would be Theodore Roosevelt the Third.”

“Or Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Jr.,” Sarah added with such an innocent expression Tony almost missed her conspiratorial wink. He chanced a glance at Joseph, and he couldn’t help but laugh when Joseph only looked up towards heaven in dismay, muttering something under his breath. 

“Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Jr. it is,” Tony decided with a quiet laugh, and he ruffled the puppy’s silky puppy coat so happily the dog got excited again and bounced up to try to climb into Tony’s lap for more affection. Tony caught him easily and eased him back down to the floor, leaning down to give the dog a kiss on the head. 

“If Steve doesn’t move down here soon, he’s going to miss a lot of excitement,” Sarah commented wistfully, watching the puppy dance around Tony’s chair in his transparent effort to get more attention. 

“He still thinks I’m in Newark,” Tony reminded her, “and I’ll probably have to go back to Boston for a while before we come back here.”

“But,” Sarah started to say, then instead asked the only thing she wanted to know: “Why?”

Joseph reached out and laid a hand across one of her’s gently in a comforting gesture. “Whatever you think is best, Tony. Are you returning to your studies in Boston?”

“I took a leave of absence from my program, but I work in Boston, at a restaurant and as a—a mechanic,” Tony hedged at first, distracting himself a little by lavishing some affection on the dog. 

Joseph looked a little confused at first, presumably trying to think through why a mechanic would need a university degree. “From what program have you taken a leave of absence?”

Tony cleared his throat and took a sip of wine before he finally bit the bullet. “I studied electrical engineering at MIT. Being a mechanic…” he hesitated, struggling to find the right words. “Fixing cars, building things. It helped me through… well—you know, uh, stress.”

“I see,” Joseph said quietly, leaning back in his seat with his glass of wine and watching Tony in silence.

Sarah watched him, too, valiantly smiling for him even with her hands fidgeting on the table. “We understand, sweetheart. And the break, you said it has helped?”

Tony gave her a tight smile and a nod, unsure of how else to express it. In Tony’s silence, however, Joseph cleared his throat and spoke. 

“Tony, you don’t need us to tell you what an exceptional institution MIT is, or the caliber of students they accept,” he said in measured words. “How have your parents responded to your decision?”

“Mom doesn’t know yet, I don’t know how to tell her,” he admitted quietly. “And I don’t talk to dad much. I haven’t told him in so many words, but I think he knows—he’s… upset.”

“Undoubtedly, he had his own expectations for you,” Joseph said after some thought, but Sarah interrupted before he could continue. 

“And he can talk to me if he thinks they’re more important than your well-being,” she said with a sudden temper. “Your health above all else; anybody tries to tell you otherwise, you send them to me.”

“Sarah, it is his father,” Joseph reminded her gently. 

“And I am his mother-in-law,” she told him with a severe finality. Then she righted the napkin in her lap, took a look around the table, and her gaze turned to Tony’s empty plate. “Honey, eat. Here,” she cut another piece of lasagna for him and held out her hand for his plate, “give me that.”

Without thinking, Tony covered his plate with both his hands, keeping Sarah from putting any more food in front of him. “Another bite and I’ll burst,” Tony promised before Sarah could insist. 

But Sarah only looked across at Joseph’s empty plate and held her hand out expectantly. “Joe?”

“No, thank you, my dear,” he declined with a smile, “only a little more wine, I think.”

Sarah frowned at both of their empty plates and the third of her lasagna that was still out on the table, yet another reminder that one person was still absent from the family table. “Alright then,” she said in a cheerful tone she did not quite feel, “if dinner is done then why don’t you two take your glasses upstairs? Tony, I’m sure you’ll find plenty in the room that you can wear for the night.”

“I’m—room? What room?” Tony blinked at her, clearly a little confused. 

“Steve’s room,” Sarah clarified, as if it was already decided. “You’re not going back to that dark, empty house to sleep alone.”

Tony bristled and frowned, actively reminding himself that Sarah and Howard were different people. “I live there,” he said as calmly and politely as he could. 

“Honey, you slept in a recliner last night,” Sarah pointed out. “Your furniture will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. One night here won’t hurt you, but sleeping in a recliner will.”

When Tony opened his mouth again, Sarah beat him to it. “Tony, please. I’m only asking you for one night where I won’t have to worry about how you’re doing all alone out on that hill.”

Tony ducked his head then, rubbing the bridge of his nose and clearing his throat before he dared to speak again. “If you insist.” 

“Come on, Tony,” Joseph said finally, once the argument had been settled. “No more of that. Let’s get you upstairs.”

“But—” Tony sputtered, gesturing at the table full of dishes and plates that had to be put away. 

“You can help in the morning with breakfast,” Sarah promised, “I’d rather you get settled for the night.”

Sarah got up since nobody else seemed to be moving and shooed them both from the table. “Now go on—Tony, here, there’s some left,” she topped off Tony’s glass with the last of the wine. “You get settled, and I’ll be up in a minute.”

Joseph got up and nodded in the direction of the stairs. Tony hurried to follow. They walked in a stilted silence all the way up the stairs, down the hallway, right up to one of the many unassuming doors. 

“Here it is,” Joseph opened the door and let Tony into Steve’s boyhood room. He went through the basics, showing Tony to Steve’s chest of drawers where he kept his clothes, where in the small closet Tony could find the electric blanket, and then where he could find the bathroom. With that, he excused himself and left Tony to get comfortable. 

Tony stood in the middle of the room, stunned and staring. Steve’s room was tidy—busy, but tidy. Bookshelves took up two full walls in the room, all stacked neatly with well-loved books, all lined up and alphabetized, journals organized by size and type, and art supplies and CD’s curated into little boxes. The only things on proud display were random knick-knacks Tony could only assume were souvenirs or presents, and photographs. There were so many photographs. 

Everywhere the now-familiar faces of those most dear to Steve were looking back at him. From large frames mounted on the wall to smaller frames perched on various surfaces across the room, Steve had surrounded himself with reminders of the people and moments he wouldn’t have wanted to forget. Directly beside the door hung a large portrait of Steve, Sam, and Bucky as children, all of them caked in mud and dressed in matching baseball uniforms, grinning into the camera like they had just won the World Series. A few inches away hung a photo of them as teenagers on a boat, where Steve and Sam held heavy, two-foot trouts, while Bucky stood beside them looking unimpressed with a drenched, derelict boot. 

On his bedside table Steve had placed a sketch pad and a large framed photo of himself with his parents, Peggy, and what must have been Peggy’s parents all out to dinner. They were all looking at the camera, the photo was clearly an expected one. Tony had never seen happier people. 

Tony looked at that photograph for a long time before he turned back to the rest of the room. The majority of cherished memories revolved around Peggy. Peggy and Steve dancing together barefoot on the beach; a candid photo of Peggy and Steve trying to get out of the house for prom; a portrait of them on a park-bench sharing an ice cream in the sunshine. Tony picked up the sketchbook on a hunch, and flipping through its pages he only found more reminders of Peggy: sketches of her eyes, her nose, her lips, the curl of her hair; her bare, delicate feet. 

The sound of clicking claws across the hardwood floor interrupted his thoughts, and Tony turned to see the gangling dog trot into the room after him, his bottom wriggling happily in greeting. Tony put the sketchbook back on the bedside table to crouch down, scratching his ears and pressing a soft kiss on the dog’s head. “Finally think I’m worthy of your company again you little traitor?”

“Tony!” Sarah called from downstairs, “is Roosevelt with you?”

“He’s here!” Tony called back, then turned to the dog and asked, “That is you, isn’t it? I think there’s a dog under all this fur. Where are you hiding, you mongrel?” He smoothed the curtain of bangs back from Teddy’s eyes, cupping the smiling face gently before giving the pup a good couple ear scratches. 

Quiet footsteps from the stairs told him someone was coming, and Sarah soon appeared in the doorway holding a small tray in front of her. “Did you find anything to wear, honey?” 

“I haven’t—no,” he answered absently, his attention almost entirely on what she was carrying. “Are those brownies?”

“Yes,” she smiled with an audible exhale that sounded suspiciously like relief. She placed the tray down on the bed and sat down next to it. “I didn’t know what you liked, so you get your pick. This is hot tea, English Breakfast, and this is hot almond milk with honey. Steve always liked the rackle cookies, but Joe prefers the brownies.”

Tony and Teddy leaned over the bed for a closer look of the platter. “Which do you prefer?” he asked with feigned indifference, but when she held up one of the crackle cookies, Tony was suspiciously quick to accept it. Teddy clambered into his lap at the first happy moan that escaped Tony, licking at his fingers and mouth eagerly even as Tony wrangled the dog down into his lap again. 

“Are you going to be comfortable in here, Tony?” Sarah asked after a couple of cookies, glancing around the room herself at all the reminders of Peggy in the room. “We have a pull-out couch, if this is uncomfortable—I’m sure he will redecorate when he gets into town. This is a little outdated now, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay,” he assured her with a smile, reaching to break off a corner edge of a brownie. “I feel better about it now that I met her. She is beautiful—and kind, she gave me a ride with my groceries yesterday.” 

Sarah struggled against the frown on her face, but Tony was convinced she was generally bad at concealing her emotions. “The way she broke my boy’s heart was not kind,” she whispered, her lips thinned in her displeasure. “He loved her so deeply. How—the way she did it, laughed at him,” she paused abruptly and swallowed back her emotions. She made herself look at Tony then, and she smiled a little as if all she had needed was a reminder that he was there. Gently she combed his hair back into place with her fingers. “I’m grateful for you, Tony. I don’t know what I would do without you. Wherever you two choose to live, now at least I will know that my boy has love in his life.”

Tony stared at her, wide-eyed. How had he missed it? He should have realized Sarah never talked about Peggy, not even in passing. Remorse strangled him, merciless and deserved. But for her he smiled, willing away the echoing memories of his grand deception so that he could offer her a brave facade. “I know. But, but Steve, he remembers her fondly; he still cares about her even if he doesn’t love her the same. And I know it’s not—expected, or, or whatever, but it is a part of him that I love, that he can move on without anger, without love turning to hate. I’m trying to learn that from him,” he confessed a little quieter, his smile fading as his expression became serious. “I’m trying to forgive her, too. As much as I can. But I can’t, not really. I won’t let her hurt your son like that again.”

She listened to him without once interrupting him, only reacting by cupping his face gently when she noticed his smile slipping. After a careful, quiet inhale she nodded her understanding. With care and effort she mustered a watery smile. “Then, I can try to forgive her, too.”


	5. A homecoming

The faint pitter-patter of rainfall against the bedroom window slowly pulled him through the warm, hazy fog of sleep, lulling him into a feather-light peace of mind where the world crawled on slower than molasses, and the hollow whistling of the wind and distant grievances of chirping birds softly seduced Tony into the next morning, coaxing his eyes open despite his best effort. It took some time, but eventually he recognized a warm pressure against his legs to be Teddy curled up and asleep behind his knees. A smile tugged at Tony’s drowsy mind once he caught up and the puppy’s small, muffled snores became distinct against the backdrop of the storm outside. Careful not to wake Teddy prematurely, Tony closed his eyes and chose to lounge in bed for several more minutes, relishing the treasured snuffling sounds of his puppy and the soothing white noise of the rain. 

By the time he opened his eyes again, Teddy was gone. Tony rolled his eyes at the ironic symmetry, then with a final, indulgent stretch in bed he pushed himself up and scrubbed at his eyes. Outside the storm clouds still hung heavy in the sky, but the rain had subsided. Steve and Peggy watched him with from the nightstand, beaming in their happiness. 

It took some time, but he got to his feet and shuffled out of the room. The house was silent; not even the excited clicking of Teddy’s paws greeted him, and by the time he reached the empty kitchen, a strange sense of abandonment had crept into his thoughts. He helped himself to a glass of water and was just about to keep on exploring the house for the family when the kitchen door opened and his little black and white ball of fur darted in like a shot, dragging his leash, his wet paws skidding and slipping on the tiles in his hurry to get to his water bowl. Joseph followed the dog in at a much less hurried pace, shutting the door (and it's winter chill) behind him. 

“Good morning, Tony,” he said with a smile, putting down a travel cup of coffee on a nearby counter to shrug out of his jacket and scarf. The smell of the coffee filled the air, sweet with a familiar scent Tony couldn't quite place with his early morning brain. “How did you sleep?” 

“Like a rock,” Tony confessed with a smile, crouching down to greet the dog who, once done with his water bowl, had decided that Tony was his whole world again. Tony clipped the leash off his collar and greeted him affectionately, rubbing his ears and pressing a kiss to the dog’s brow. 

“We missed you at breakfast today,” Joseph added easily and without guilt, picking up his coffee and sitting down at the table near Tony and Teddy. “If you are hungry, Sarah left a plate to warm for you in the oven.”

Tony’s face and ears flushed red, and he quickly rubbed at his face to cover it as much as he could. “I don't—I mean, is there any more coffee?”

Joseph chuckled quietly and got up from the kitchen table. “In this house? Certainly. Why don't you get Teddy his breakfast, and I'll fix us some coffee?” 

Teddy recognized his name and flailed where he lay getting his belly rubbed, losing sight of his own limbs in his excitement to bounce up to his feet. “Wow, you're excited for those Kibbles,” Tony teased, going to pick up the food bowl. Teddy’s eagerness for a playmate evaporated at once, and his energy narrowed to a complete focus on his food bowl. Together, they walked out to the garage where Teddy’s food was kept. It took Tony some time to read through the suggested measurements, and a few minutes longer to even find the scoop, but eventually it was all solved and he carried the bowl back to the kitchen where Teddy finally got to eat his fill. 

On the counter two cups of steaming coffee waited for him. Joseph must have stepped out of the kitchen for something, but Tony couldn't wait for his caffeine fix any longer and quickly picked one up, cradling the warm mug in his hand and inhaling the aroma deeply. Again he caught a whiff of what Joseph’s travel mug had smelled like, but it was nothing off-putting so he took a long, relieved drink without thinking much of it until he realized what he was drinking was less black coffee and more straight whiskey. 

Tony swallowed it down, stone-faced. A childhood worth of memories about Howard’s drinking problems hit him like a brick wall, and with his heart somewhere down in his gut he struggled to focus his attention on the space around him, listening for approaching feet or voices. Assured of his temporary privacy he rushed into action re-filling the cup from what remained in the coffee pot and putting the cup down just as he had found it on the counter, even angling the handle the way it had originally pointed so casually. With nothing else left to fix, he grabbed the second cup (sniffed it carefully to be sure it was exclusively coffee), and backed out of the kitchen with Teddy faithfully trailing him. He spun on his heel to climb the stairs upstairs when he came face to face with Sarah. 

“Sweet—Tony?” Sarah frowned, immediately concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“Fine,” he lied through a smile, “fine, everything’s fine—hey, hi, good morning,” he finished lamely. 

Sarah watched him for a minute, then smiled for him. “Why don’t we go get your breakfast and you can join me upstairs? Joe’s on his way out for work, and I could use some company that doesn’t try to chew my shoes.”

“That’s profiling,” Tony accused before thinking, but she laughed so easily that he had no time to regret his knee-jerk reaction. She kissed his cheek in greeting then, and Tony was about to lead their way back to the kitchen when he realized why he had been on his way upstairs in the first place. “I’m a little cold, I’m grabbing a sweater. Can I meet you …?” 

“Turn right down the hall, first door on your right,” she filled in for him, “go on up, I’ll be right there.”

When Sarah met him at her and Joseph’s bedroom, Tony had his head back squarely on his shoulders. Clearly he had overreacted; Howard and Joseph were different people, there could be dozens of explanations for why Joseph drank more than one Irish coffee in the morning. Shrugging the concern off, Tony deliberately dedicated himself only to what Sarah was saying as she took him through the gutted walk-in closet. All around them lay vaguely assorted and poorly orchestrated piles of clothes and accessories, strewn haphazardly in an ad-hoc maze to the closet itself, a space with even less structure and rationality. 

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” were the first words out of Tony’s mouth when he finally accepted the reality around him. “You need shelves more than Teddy needs a door.”

“Oh, I know it’s a mess, but it should be fine if I can just clean it out—”

“For two people?” Tony interrupted with a frown, carefully stepping through the mess on the closet floor to estimate the measurements. “You have one high shelf—which _I_ can barely reach comfortably—three drawers, and everything else is hanging space, this…” he hesitated briefly before asking, “Steve didn’t design this, did he?” 

Sarah shook her head. “No, why?”

“Because it’s shit,” Tony said with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest. Sarah laughed so unexpectedly that Teddy, who had been happily gnawing on a rawhide in a warm corner, dropped his bone and trotted over to see her, eager to share in whatever she was offering. “I’ll help you clean it out, and then… then, I would need four days: three days to build, one day to install. Would that work?”

Sarah wrapped him up in a hug with a big smile, and kissed his cheek. “Honey, if you’re building us new shelves, we will be more concerned with how to thank you than whether we can live without a closet for a week.” 

*** 

Between the two of them it took several hours to clean out the closet and fill half a dozen donation bags, but together they managed it before noon. Tony helped Sarah stow the bags in her car and saw her off before he set off to the yellow house, Teddy’s leash in one hand and a large bag of prepared meals in the other. 

He didn’t make it two blocks before someone called his name, and he turned to see Bucky and Sam out for a walk, the big, red Maine Coon from the clinic sauntering along nearby. Sam waved to him and Tony turned down the street to meet them halfway. 

“Hey Tony, what’s up?” Sam said with a grin, crouching down to pet the puppy, who clearly was very excited to see his old friends. “Hey Klutzbucket, how you doing, buddy? Man, tell me you renamed this poor dog.”

“We did,” Tony answered, not without pride. “He’s Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Jr.” When both of them just stared at him and neither even grinned, Tony shrugged a little self-consciously and added, “I call him Teddy. Dr. Rogers and Sarah call him Roosevelt.”

Sam eyed the puppy wriggling on the ground for bellyrubs, and even as he rubbed his soft little belly he couldn’t help but mutter, “Looks like you’re cursed with crazy-ass names, Teddy. You’re still cool, though.”

“How was he last night?” Bucky asked Tony, bending briefly to scratch the dog’s ears with practiced hands. 

“He was great,” Tony grinned, resisting the urge to openly preen over how wonderful his dog was. “He liked his food, he slept well, caused no troub—oh, hello,” he breathed in surprise when he felt the red cat nosing at his leg, and watched, wide-eyed, as Ohio rubbed her cheek against his jeans. “He—she—it—”

“She,” Bucky supplied tersely. But displeased as he seemed to be, he didn’t make any move to interrupt them. 

“She is beautiful,” Tony whispered at the same time as Sam murmured, “What the hell?”

Tony stood patiently and tried not to stare, but when Ohio looked up at him Tony blinked slowly a few times before averting his gaze. Unfortunately for him, his eyes naturally went right to Bucky’s face. 

“She likes you,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. “She doesn’t like strangers.”

Teddy seemed to have noticed a cat rubbing itself against his favorite biped and bounced over to Tony again. His presence, distasteful to the cat, was enough to have her saunter off as quietly as she had come. With no evident effort, she leapt up and perched comfortably on Bucky’s left shoulder; he brought a hand up to cradle her weight so she wouldn’t have to deploy the landing gear. 

“Did everything go alright yesterday?” Sam asked, standing up again and brushing at his knees to get the slushed winter grime off his jeans. “I didn’t get a call from Mrs. R or from you; you didn’t move the furniture on your own, did you?”

“We didn’t,” Tony promised, “everything’s being delivered this afternoon.”

“Making it official,” Sam grinned, satisfied. “Hey, the offer still stands: call if you need any help. Today’s my day off, it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

Tony swallowed back against the rising emotions and gave him a quick, jerky nod in response before he could speak. “Yeah, I—thanks, Sam. That means a lot.”

Sam shrugged and smiled easily. “Don’t mention it. Steve would’ve done the same.” 

Bucky walked away without a word, and Sam waved goodbye as he followed Bucky the way they had been going. Tony and Teddy watched them go, one more confused than the other, until it became too cold to stand still. 

The walk from Sarah and Joseph’s home to the yellow house was nearly thirty minutes along the road, but with the biting wind chill and darkening clouds, Tony cut through neighborhoods and private yards to get home more quickly. He was nearly to the bottom of the hill leading up to the yellow house when he spotted a woman struggling to get her large potted plants in from the yard. With Sam’s words fresh in his mind, he turned on his heel and jogged over to help. 

Tony was too near to back away when he realized who she was. The woman straightened up to catch her breath, brushing her beautiful, auburn curls back from her face, and she saw him immediately. “Tony!” Peggy greeted him with a smile, “how are you? Aren’t you cold?”

“Hey—need a hand?” he answered by way of explanation, putting down the bag of food and Teddy’s leash to free his hands. 

“That’s very kind of you,” she said, finishing with a grunt of effort as together they carried the first of her small trees into the warmth of her house. Teddy followed them on each return journey in his curiosity, and when Tony finally dropped on the couch in Peggy’s living room to rest after all the trees had been brought in, Teddy pounced into his lap for well-deserved affection. 

“Did everyone ignore you for too long?” Tony murmured, rubbing the dog’s ears gently and warming his cold hands in Teddy’s warm coat. “Not enough attention for you?”

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Peggy said as she came back to the living room with two large cups of tea, putting one down on a coaster next to Tony’s seat. 

“I didn’t when we first met,” Tony grinned, gently leading Teddy forward to sit between his knees before the dog got grand ideas about jumping on the couch again. “I adopted him last night. Bucky said he needed a home.”

“I see,” she answered softly, reaching forward with one hand to let the dog smell her hand before attempting to pet his head. “He is a darling; what’s his name?”

“This is Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Jr.,” Tony answered with a grin, rubbing at the dog’s chest affectionately. Peggy took to the name much more readily than either Sam or Bucky, laughing softly in delight. “I call him Teddy.”

“A most charming name,” she noted with obvious approval, then sat back to hold her tea closer to her, her cold fingers wrapped around its warmth. “Would you like me to give you a ride home? It’s the least I could do; it’s freezing out there.”

“We’ll be fine, it’s not far. Won’t we, you little loser?” Tony added more quietly to Teddy, thumping his flank before cupping the dog’s muzzle and giving his head a kiss. “We should get going. Thank you for the tea, Peggy.”

“But you didn’t drink any,” she protested with a small frown, “there’s no rush, Tony, stay and warm up a little.”

“We’re okay—” 

“—then stay to tell me about how you and Steve met,” Peggy insisted with a sly little smile. “You warming up will only be a bonus.”

Tony laughed at her sudden transparency, but instead of finding it offensive he finally settled back more comfortably on the couch and reached for the tea. “How we met? You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me,” she challenged in return, smiling over the rim of her cup. 

“Alright… well, it was late one night, I’d just finished with work and I was walking home, crossing Boylston Street when some asshole plowed into me and took off—nobody ever caught him,” he added with a frown, shaking his head at the absurdity. “So much for traffic cameras and big brother, right?”

Peggy watched him with rapt attention, wide-eyed. “Were you alright?”

“Oh yeah, I was fine. Luckily, my face broke the fall,” Tony deadpanned. “I was pretty lucky, except for my nose, that was busted, and my cheeks, they fractured—my jaw, three fractures there. They had me taped up like some sketchy midnight carnival mummy: all you could see were my eyeballs and my lips.”

“My god,” Peggy breathed in concerned, drawing up her feet under her as she leaned forward in her armchair. 

“I shared my hospital room with a woman from an architectural firm,” Tony continued, “she wasn’t in there for anything serious—knee replacement, I think?—and Steve came in to see her with some balloons. He must have felt sorry for me or something—I looked like a mummy, who wouldn’t have felt sorry for me?” he noted with a laugh. “He gave me one of the balloons; so my side of the room wouldn’t look so depressing, he said. And then he came back to see me the next day, and the next, and the next… he wasn’t even flirting, we just talked—about anything, everything. I told him about my research and how nice it was that nobody could see how badly I was panicking about falling behind while I had this mask on, and he told me about the big project they had dropped in his lap without warning. But this whole time he hasn’t even seen my face, we’re just two strangers talking—and somewhere, somehow that idiot of mine figured out that I didn’t actually have the money to pay for the hospital bill. So he paid for it.”

Peggy stared, dumbfounded. “Steve did? How long were you in the hospital?”

Tony hummed quietly to himself as he thought it over, then replied, “Two weeks? Give or take a day or two.”

“What?” Peggy laughed in disbelief, “how! With what money? All his money is tied up in that house.”

“Oh, of course he can,” Tony said with an easy smile and a casual shrug. “He’s an architect, you know.”

“Ah,” Peggy noted delicately, clearing her throat before adding, “he is, but he is only an associate. It doesn’t pay very much, you see.”

Tony grinned with all his teeth at her answer, and without hesitating he said, “You didn’t hear about his promotion?”

“He was promoted?”

“To partner,” Tony clarified with a confident nod. “They love him over there now, you should have seen the way Mosby talked about him at the last dinner. Anyway,” he added before Peggy could ask more questions. “He takes me home from the hospital, and he’s running all these errands for me—”

“—and all this time he hasn’t seen your face? You’re still all wrapped up?” she interrupted, incredulous until Tony nodded in confirmation and she just rolled her eyes. “God, this is so typical Steve.”

“Then one night,” Tony continued in a softer tone, smiling wistfully as if at the memory, “one night we were lying on the couch watching TV together—it was my night, so we were watching Planet Earth, and he usually just passes out those nights—but that night, he… he kissed me for the first time. And the second time, and the third time, until we just couldn’t stop, and we—well… _you know_ ,” he summarized politely. “It was just incredible: I could have been anyone behind that mask, but he still... He cared. He was gentle and so… generous, and it was all because of who I was, not what I looked like. I can’t tell you how hot that made it...”

Peggy watched him, speechless and wide-eyed, absently tracing her fingers back and forth along the rim of her cup. They shared a tense, reflective silence until Tony finally came to in a sudden shudder and cleared his throat. 

“Then the next morning I wake up in his arms and he tells me he wants to marry me,” Tony told her quietly, as if sharing a secret. “I couldn’t believe it; he hadn’t even seen my face! But that’s what we did: the next week we were married at the hospital. When the chaplain said _you may now kiss your husband_ , instead of lifting the veil on a bride, the doctor unwrapped the gauze… and Steve, he saw me for the first time,” Tony added in a watery whisper, his eyes wet with happy tears. “He looked at me, and, and he just… I’d never seen anyone so happy. Nothing else existed around us in that moment, and when he smiled at me, he smiled like I was what he had been waiting for his whole life.”

*** 

Tony didn’t stay very long after that. Twenty minutes later he left his untouched cup of tea, accepted a hug goodbye and Peggy’s promise to thank him for his help with the plants, and got back on his way to the yellow house. The walk home was wet and cold, and they jogged up the hill just to keep warm. By the time they got home even Teddy shivering. Tony folded one of the market quilts into a makeshift bed in the kitchen and bundled the puppy up in the other, letting Teddy nest and rest while he put away all the food and snacks Sarah had sent home with them. 

It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. Teddy, warmed up and rested, burst out of his cocoon and dashed to the door, leaving Tony to trail after him with a less desperate excitement. But to Tony’s surprise (and Teddy’s obvious delight) it was Bucky at the door, not the people delivering their furniture. 

“Come in,” Tony ushered him into the house without preamble, the winter chill still fresh in his memory. Bucky stepped in carrying a large cardboard box, and without a word he continued straight through the house to the kitchen. With a giddy bounce in his step, Teddy dutifully trailed Bucky. 

Tony stared after them in mild shock until the irritation became too much. “Make yourself at home!” he called at Bucky’s back, following them at a measured pace so his lack of enthusiasm would be abundantly clear. 

“Mom insisted,” Bucky explained with a grimace, forcefully setting the box down on the island counter.

Curious despite himself, Tony pulled the box across the counter to look into it himself. Jackie’s gift turned out to be a box full of food: several casseroles ready for eating or freezing, two loaves of pumpkin walnut bread, and a generous glass jar full of something that looked like peanut butter and chocolate cake pops. 

“Is this for me?” Tony wondered, shock changing into a more profound disbelief. He picked up the jar and shook it experimentally to see what would happen. The loose peanut butter balls bounced around without crumbling apart, firm in their chocolate glaze. “What are these?” he asked Bucky, already opening the jar to fish one out. 

“Buckeyes,” Bucky said in a far too casual tone.

On a hunch, Tony pushed the open jar across the marble-top counter to invite Bucky to try some, too. Prickly as he was, Bucky didn’t resist for very long; the jar had barely come to a stop before Bucky reached in to grab one for himself. 

“You’re kinda intimidating for a vet,” Tony told him, apropos of nothing. “Is it intentional? Do you cultivate the murderous vet persona? Just curious. Cause you’re kinda missing the mark if that’s what you’re going for—I mean, you totally got that intimidation thing down, but this feels different, like it’s personal? Either way, I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate being intimidated. My dad liked to play that a lot, you know, the intimidation game, and he’s better at it than you; he doesn’t make the face you make when he eats chocolate—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat chocolate, actually—and I get why _he_ does it, but why do you do it? With me, I mean. Are you upset with me? With Steve? Sarah said he’d been honest about his orientation, but he does look pretty wholesome, did you not believe he’s the kind of man to get hard from sucking on my balls? Or,” he paused a moment, realizing a whole different possibility. “Are you jealous? Because I—I get that, I mean, everybody loves Steve, and he’s—it’s as if someone designed a person out of that volleyball scene in Top Gun: all the smooth skin and rock-hard abs, and man, let me tell you: dick for days—”

“—oh my god, do you ever shut up,” Bucky moaned in capitulation, leaning forward against the counter on his forearms and hiding his face for just a minute before he dared to look up again. “It’s about Steve, alright? He’s a stubborn ass who doesn’t think shit through. But when he commits, he commits everything. There is no Plan B. And you,” he said with a tired sigh, gesturing in aggressive accusation at Tony, “you’re what, twenty-four?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Even better,” Bucky muttered. “Steve’s thirty. He’s in this for life. Do you even understand what that means? This isn’t some fad that can come and go: you can’t just… insert yourself into his life and get bored after a few years. Don’t you get what that could do to him? We haven’t seen him since Peggy said no.”

There was a beat after Bucky finished, a pregnant silence that only seemed to fuel Bucky’s anger in the same way it was digging the ditch of regret deeper in Tony’s conscience. “I get it,” Tony admitted quietly, “I do. I mean—no, I don’t _get it_ : I never had it to get it. I… mom left when I was twelve, dad ...dad is dad,” he sighed, finding no words to describe Howard’s misguided anger and jealousy. “But, I think I get it. Steve is a hopeless romantic who doesn’t know when to quit: I get that. It’s… it’s all I’ve—I mean, even if it’s for a little while, I’ve never had this before. So sure, maybe one day I will regret it and you’ll want to feed me to Ohio, but right now? Today? I’m living the only dream I ever fucking had. And I will fight anyone for it.”

“Not good enough if it’s only your dream you’re fighting for,” Bucky warned him, but then he straightened up and jerked his chin in the direction of the front door. Still thinking over Bucky’s words, Tony slowly turned to see what was happening, and through the floor to ceiling windows of the grand room he saw the furniture delivery truck pull up in the driveway. 

“Need any help?”

“Thanks, but there’s two of them,” Tony said quietly, his words stilted and spoken on autopilot. His mind was elsewhere. “We’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Bucky drawled, but the way he followed Tony out of the kitchen and to the front door made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere. 

Between the four of them they worked with remarkable efficiency, filling every inch of the house in less than two hours: a four poster bed and a velvet lounge chair for the bedroom; sofas and a mounted television for the grand room; a kitchen table for the breakfast nook; armchairs and an old record player for the reading nook above the bedroom. But when Sam jogged up to the yellow house an hour after the movers had been well thanked, well fed, and well paid, Bucky and Tony were still moving furniture around the grand room, not-so-passive aggressively fighting over the overall arrangement. Sam dropped his large canvas bag on the nearest armchair and crouched down to pet Teddy who rushed over for some attention. Neither Bucky nor Tony noticed Sam or Teddy with them in the room, busy as they were pushing the plush, velvet chaise around in their unending argument over whether it should be turned toward the fireplace or toward the windows. 

“Does this mean you’re getting along now?” Sam wondered with a smirk, and both Bucky and Tony spun around like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, suddenly aware of their audience. “Man, you know how cold it is out there? You left me hanging. For forty minutes.”

Bucky’s expression twisted with a wry sense of guilt, and he muttered something under his breath before letting go of the couch and hurrying to find his sneakers. 

Tony eyed Sam in his cold running gear and the canvas bag left on an armchair, and he seemed torn over which to comment on first. Finally, he asked, “What’s this?”

“Ma sent some breakfast,” Sam explained, “some pancake batter and bacon.” He stood up as Bucky came around the furniture, ready to head out for their run. “That’s the same bacon we use in our sandwiches: do not re-gift.”

“I won’t,” Tony promised, already gravitating towards the bag and peeking through the generous servings of goodies. 

“Come on, get your ass in gear,” Sam pestered Bucky, shoving his windbreaker at him and ushering him out the door. He paused in the doorway and called back to Tony, “The place looks great, Tony! We’ll see you again tonight, yeah?”

Tony called back in the affirmative and waved them off as he carried the new gifts back to the kitchen, struggling to make all of the gifts of homemade food fit in the fridge alongside the groceries. It took some applied Tetris, but eventually he had it all organized with a satisfying logic. He cast a final, satisfied look around the kitchen, then wandered out to take in the comfortable arrangement of the great room. 

It had been a long, stressful day, and there was nothing he needed more than a lazy, afternoon nap. Grabbing the quilt he had bundled Teddy up in earlier, he walked out to the green velvet chaise he and Bucky had been arguing over for the past half hour. He angled it to face the window, turning it into a priceless seat overlooking the frozen pond, the snow-dusted trees, with the rolling hills and trees beyond, stretching as far as the eye could see. Despite the winter chill outside, the sun shone through the large windows and warmed Tony up where he curled up under his quilt. Recognizing an opportune naptime, Teddy trotted over immediately and he bounded up onto the lounge, spun once, twice, three times before settling down to sleep against Tony’s belly.

*** 

Boston wasn’t warm, but Dobbs Mill was colder. Steve took the most indirect route to the yellow house that he possibly could in the hopes of passing unseen through the village, and he congratulated himself on a job well done when he pulled onto the gravel driveway without once having been honked or waved at on the street. 

For being neglected for months on end, the drive to his house was unusually well-kept and tidy. Could his parents have continued the mowing service in the hopes of surprising him when he returned? He cringed at the thought, casting a guilty glance at the FOR SALE sign in his backseat. If they were coming up here regularly enough to have the lawn mowed, hearing of the house being for sale by reading the sign would be a nasty surprise. 

He was struggling with the decision to call them and share his plan to sell the house with them when he parked and got out. Bird songs greeted him as soon as the door opened, and at first he glanced at the bird feeder in the center of the circular driveway wondering when his mom had gotten around to refilling it. It wasn’t until he was scrubbing his shoes clean on the welcome mat that he remembered how he had never installed a bird feeder in the first place. 

He did a double take down at his feet, staring down at the welcome mat in absolute shock. He didn’t have a welcome mat; he was _never here to welcome people._ When he tried the door, it opened inward smoothly, eager to welcome him in. 

His empty, dusty, neglected house had been polished and elegantly decorated, a warm, well-loved space that he struggled to recognize. Stunned, his feet stuttered and dragged as he made his way into the grand room, every step more dizzying than the first. This couldn’t be right; he must be dreaming—this could not be happening. 

A little yip of excitement alerted him to another presence in the house, and he spun right in time to see a lanky puppy tumble out of a lounge chair in a rush, wiggling happily in greeting and throwing himself to the floor at Steve’s feet for belly rubs. 

But Steve could only stare down at the dog, dumbfounded and paralyzed in his shock, until he heard a little groan from somewhere in the room. Like a startled burglar he rushed a few steps towards the door before he caught up with what he was doing and reminded himself that _this was his house_ , and instead he spun around again to try and find the person who had made that sound. 

“Hello?” he eventually asked into the empty space, and a familiar dark head of hair emerged from under a quilt on the lounge chair by the windows.

Tony frowned in confusion as soon as he saw Steve in the grand room. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing—what are _you_ doing here?”

Tony moaned and pushed himself up to sitting in the chair, trying and failing to simultaneously cover his yawn and comb his hair down with his fingers. “I—I,” he started to say between yawns, until finally he could sit up straight again and finish a sentence. “I got kicked out of my apartment. I, I had no place to go—and I would have called you, I would have, but I didn’t have any way of getting in touch with you, you didn’t leave a number or even your card, I didn’t know what to do—”

“Oh my God,” Steve muttered in horrified realization. “You’re that—that waiter, Tony.”

Tony leveled a flat look at him, pursing his lips in distaste. “...well excuse me, Steve, but I assumed we had already been introduced.”

“Yeah—no, of course, I recognized you, I just,” he stammered a moment, grasping for words, “you look different in your Hungarian outfit.”

Tony’s expression turned from annoyed to anxious at the mention of the Hungarian outfit, and he shrunk where he sat, scrubbing at the back of his head self-consciously. “Yeah… I just, I had to get out of there, Steve. I’m sorry, I really wouldn’t have—if I had known anywhere else to go. But Carol, my landlord? Owns the Budapest? Well, turns out he didn’t actually want to fix that busted lock, and we had a real difference of opinion about when he could come into my apartment unannounced, and exactly where he could put his hands while he was there.”

“He _what_.” Steve bit out, flaring up briefly in anger before concern overwhelmed his instincts. “Didn’t you have any friends you could go to?”

“I told you, I’m not really from Boston, my only friend are from the restaurant, and I had to get out of there—I don’t even have a phone,” Tony swore, “I didn’t have anything but that drawing of this house you made, I knew it was in Dobbs Mill, and I knew that, you know, it was just sitting here, not being used—”

“—but where did all this furniture come from!” Steve interrupted suddenly, waving his arms in a mad gesture as if to underscore just how much stuff had never been there before. 

“Bigelow’s,” Tony answered promptly. 

“No,” Steve groaned, “no, Tony: _how did it get here?_ There wasn’t some fucking furniture stampede through Dobbs Mill, so who paid for this?”

“Steve, I’ll pay you back—”

Steve balked in a heartbeat, his voice rising in a sudden rage. “Pay me _back?!_ ”

Tony startled and jerked in his seat as if struck, and from behind Steve, Teddy barked and growled in warning, rushing to place himself between Steve and Tony. The unexpected bravery of the puppy reminded Tony of where he was again, and he managed to make his way to Teddy and grab him by the collar, holding him close. 

“What is this dog doing here?” Steve snapped, his voice rising again but this time out of anxiety rather than anger, “oh god, what is happening...”

“Here, come here,” Tony said softly, slowly making his way to Steve like one might approach a frazzled horse, and gently he led him to the nearest couch. “Here, sit, I’ll explain everything,” he promised in a low, soothing voice.

Completely out of his depth, Steve could only nod and follow Tony’s direction, sitting on the couch when he was told to sit and listen. “I’m really sorry, Steve,” Tony started this time, kneeling between the coffee table and Steve’s knees. “I didn’t know what else to do. I came here, I thought I could sleep here for just a few nights until I found a new place to go. I was hungry, so I went to Keller’s Market, okay, and that’s where I overheard Hazel and Travis talking—”

“Wait—whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve patted at Tony’s face with an open hand in a clumsy sign to be quiet. “Hazel?”

“Hazel Byron?” Tony said into Steve’s palm, moving his head back a little to put some distance between his face and Steve’s hand. 

“ _You know Mrs. Byron?_ ”

“I—yeah, your piano teacher? What a great woman—Stewie’s got a cold he’s not been able to shake for—”

“—Shhh,” Steve said breathlessly, patting at Tony’s face again. “Go, go back to the grocery store—where Mrs. Byron says to Mr. Keller.”

“Okay,” Tony promised, reaching to take Steve’s hand gently in his and settling it down in Steve’s lap instead of in his face. “So, she told him to just put it on her account.”

Steve stared at him, then slowly, in a low, dangerous growl, he asked, “You charged the groceries to me?”

“I was hungry,” Tony reminded him, looking pretty annoyed at having had to repeat himself again. “You have to understand what that feels like, it’s not—”

Steve glanced around at all the furniture in the room and realized that it was not only the groceries Tony must have charged to his account: he had charged everything to Steve’s name. He groaned in frustration, hiding his face in his hands as he felt an attack rising in his chest, numbing his body. He struggled to control his breathing but it became impossible as his chest and his airway constricted, and he choked when he struggled to inhale. In his panic, it became so easy to fall back to old habits. With his eyes closed, he thought of those beautiful, brown eyes, the silky auburn curls, and those red luscious lips, and slowly he was able to focus again, slowly remembering how to breathe again. 

“Fine, alright, but what did you tell him?” he managed to ask at last, a little breathless, “how the hell did you convince him to do it?”

“I guess he was under the impression that I was—”

“Insane?”

“—thanks for the vote of confidence,” Tony muttered with a little shrug, then with a self-conscious smile explained, “No, I just told him to put it on our account.”

Steve stared at him. Whether he was processing or rebooting was unclear, but for a long, awkward silence he stared at Tony, until finally he started to look a little green around the edges. “You,” he finally wheezed out, “you told him _we were married?_ ”

“Well, what was I supposed to do, Steve? You tell me.”

“And—and he, he believed you?” Steve choked out, caught between hysteria and despair. 

But Tony found no humor in Steve’s reaction, and he sat back on his heels with his arms crossed across his chest. “What, I’m not good enough for you?”

“—What? No, I just—”

Tony got up to his feet and started to walk away in his anger, struggling to keep himself from yelling. “You know what? Travis thinks I’m good enough. Hazel and Jackie think I’m good enough—”

But Steve wasn’t even looking at Tony anymore. His gaze had turned to the coffee table in front of him, and he reached out hesitantly to touch it. “This coffee table,” he whispered in dawning horror. 

Tony frowned “...what about it?”

Steve stared up at him, wide-eyed. “It’s my mother’s.”

“Oh,” Tony nodded in understanding, shrugging his shoulders a little. “I know, it’s not my taste either. But all of this represents a compromise—you know your mother, she has this vision for us, and she was so happy I couldn’t say no—”

“My parents think we’re married!?” Steve cried, and if he hadn’t been green before he was turning green now, nauseous and utterly scandalized. 

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Tony told him, “they’re wonderful parents, it’s going to be fine.” But Steve only groaned and fell back on the couch, covering his face with both hands as he sunk back into the plush cushions, kicking his feet up on the coffee table to push back into them even further in a futile attempt to find refuge there from this nightmare. “They’ve been great so far, Steve, you’re so fortunate to have such supportive p—hey, would you mind taking your feet off the furniture?”

Steve vented his frustration loudly into his palms, but when he finally looked up again, Tony wasn’t in the grand room anymore. “...Tony?” When there was no answer, he rolled up to his feet and rushed out in the direction of the foyer where he glimpsed Tony slipping into the bedroom. “Tony!”

“What?” he whined, walking right to the bed and crawling under the comforter, pulling it right up to his chin. 

“You can’t stay here,” Steve told him. “This isn’t right. You _know_ this isn’t right.”

Tony pouted and burrowed further into the comforter. “Why not?” 

“I hardly know you!” 

“Come on! Where am I supposed to go?” Tony complained, but then he snapped right up in bed and glared at him. “And what do you mean you hardly know me? I’ve got four hickeys on my ass that say otherwise.”

Steve had the decency to look contrite, and he shuffled from foot to foot as he tried to find the words to apologize. “I—look, Tony, I am sorry, I’m really sorry for the way I, I treated you, but I’m going through a very difficult time right now and this isn’t helping!” In a sudden fit of genius he started patting at his pockets until he found his wallet, and he dug into the fold for cash. “Here—here, look, I’ve got—it’s maybe a hundred bucks here, would you just take this until you get back on your feet again? Go ahead, take it.”

Tony stared at him, unable to accept what he was seeing. “...what is that? Payment for services rendered?”

“Oh, for—!” Steve growled, struggling to keep his fists at his side. “What do you want from me, Tony?”

“I don’t want your goddamn money.”

“No, just my goddamn house!”

A gentle series of knocks on the front door surprised both of them, and in unison they straightened up and looked in the direction of the foyer. Light footsteps clicked across the tiled foyer, and Steve turned to the door as he immediately recognized who it was. 

Peggy called into the house, clearly uncertain of what to do with the open door, and Steve walked out of the bedroom to meet her in the foyer, helpless to follow the sound of her voice. Like a drowning man brought to water he stared at her, beautiful as ever in her red peacoat and black boots. 

“Oh god,” he breathed, “Peggy.” 

“Steve!” she beamed, and with only a minor beat of hesitation she came forward to hug him, kissing his cheek. “I—I was dying to see how it all looked, and Tony, he—oh, Steve, congratulations. I am so happy for you two!” 

Steve’s euphoric expression darkened, and soon he was glowering. “You needn’t be,” he said in poorly restrained anger, and he marched back to the bedroom where Tony still sat under the covers. “You want to tell her, or should I?”

“Fuck you,” Tony bit back, dropping right back down into the bed and pulling the covers over his head. 

“Uh,” Peggy stammered, staring at the scene between them, and quietly backed away to the door. “Maybe—maybe I should come at another time, I—”

“Peggy, Peggy wait,” Steve rushed after her, “no wait, please! It’s going to sound crazy, but—”

“Steve, no,” Peggy interrupted him before he could get any further, “look, whatever happened, it’s between you and Tony.”

“You don’t—”

She held up a hand and Steve bit back whatever he’d been about to say. “—Steve, let me just say one thing,” she told him in a lowered voice, “Tony is a wonderful man, he is kind and he is helpful. Yours is a genuinely unique marriage—”

Steve snorted and all but rolled his eyes, and mostly to himself muttered, “If you only knew...”

“To marry a man whose face you’ve never seen?” she said, amazed. “Your wedding day at the hospital when the doctor removed the gauze? That is incredible, Steve… it sure made my heart skip a beat.”

“...it did?”

Peggy blushed, as if surprised by her own confession, and with a shy smile she nodded. She glanced down momentarily an unusual show of vulnerability, but quietly she dared to explain herself. “Do you know why I said no to you that day?”

Steve could only shake his head, and he followed her when she walked a little farther from the house, keeping a respectful distance even as he desperately wanted to touch her again. 

“You scared me, Steve,” she confessed, “building this house, putting a big ribbon around it? I couldn’t marry a dreamer, Steve; and to take on that kind of a mortgage when you had your college debts? We both did. I’m not that brave, Steve. But now, when I see you through Tony’s eyes, you look so different to me.”

“I do?”

“Well, I—I can see how a dreamer with someone who believes in him could do great things,” she said with a smile, then her smile grew even happier when she added, “and I heard about your promotion, Steve, it’s wonderful. You deserve it.”

Steve stared at her, struggling to stay afloat in this conversation, and he could barely even hum in question when she mentioned the promotion. What promotion? 

“Associate Partner? Wow!” she grinned, “and so soon! Truly, Steve, you’ve done such great things. And Tony, he is very proud of you—he deserves to be. I must admit, I’m a little jealous.”

“..really?”

Peggy laughed and looked down again, a beautiful pink blush rising in her cheeks again in the admission. “Yeah,” she whispered, “a little.” 

After a long, charged silence between them, Steve gently took Peggy by the elbow and led her on a walk further from the house. “Peggy, there’s something I think you should know…”

*** 

Tony stared at him in complete disbelief. “I slept with Boomer Bower?”

“But it’s not like you’re being promiscuous!” Steve defended him, pacing in front of Tony as he thought. “He’s your former partner, you were in a long-term relationship and you cared deeply about him, and you bumped into him one day, and you got to reminiscing and it just happened! Except now, you don’t know where we stand.”

“Steve, no, you—” Tony smacked a hand over his face and groaned into his palm. “You gave me an old boyfriend and you named him Boomer Bower?”

“Okay—okay so the name sucks, I admit it, but I’m a little new at this, okay?” Steve rushed to apologize, but immediately he waved the concern away to bring them back to the important point, “but that’s the beauty of it! That’s why you left our apartment in Boston, you came here to try and decide between me and Boomer!”

“Fucking Christ, Steve,” Tony sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I can’t believe you told her that.”

“I can’t believe you can’t believe it! You’ve told a few crazy stories yourself, you know.”

“I told nice ones!”

“I—” Steve started to say, but Tony saw how Steve’s face fell the moment he understood Tony’s point. “Tony, I’m sorry. I—I promise she won’t tell anyone, she’s great with secrets, but I get it, I shouldn’t—that wasn’t… I just—I had this idea, and I ran with it. If this is my chance to get Peggy back? Tony, I love her more than anything. I’ve always loved her. But she told me—something went wrong, I guess, she said she just couldn’t picture me as a husband. But now that she sees me with you? It’s like she can finally see me in that role. I want to be that for her. So,” he added a little more hesitantly, “I think we can help each other. I—I have a suggestion, would you hear me out?”

“...alright.”

“We’re married, but our marriage is on the rocks. Every weekend, I drive up here and I try so hard to save this marriage—”

“—and I get to stay in the house?”

“Absolutely! And I’ll pay for whatever you need while you’re here,” Steve promised, grinning at Tony’s unexpected show of support. “Meanwhile, Peggy’s heart goes out to me, you and I get divorced, and I can marry Peggy! What do you say, Tony?”

Tony watched him with a stony expression, barely reacting to his words anymore. Finally, with a little shrug he admitted, “You know, for a while there this was a great marriage.” Steve groaned, and Tony groaned right back just to be petty, and he turned back in bed to crawl under the comforter again. “Well, it was! It was perfect... until you had to come into it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I couldn't begin to tell you how happy your comments make me(!!). Seriously, those notifications feel as reviving and thrilling and AMAZING as unexpected snow days, or scraping out a really big bowl of chocolate cake batter.


	6. The reckoning

“I proposed, we got married in the hospital, and you’re a college drop-out who works as a mechanic and waiter,” Steve summarized, a little frown of concentration on his face. They were sitting together in the breakfast nook, eating Jackie’s tater tot casserole and getting their story straight. “Where do you go to school? Are you a senior?”

Tony hesitated for a beat before answering him. “I’m a graduate student in electrical engineering. MIT.”

“Oh, shit,” Steve breathed before he could stop himself. “Tony, why—that’s a great school, what happened?”

“Change of heart,” Tony shrugged his comment off stiffly, poking at his casserole. “Listen, Sarah and Joseph will be by soon. Jackie and Mike, too. I know you’ve—you know, it’s a lot. We can tell them you’re tired.”

“No, it’s,” Steve stopped what he was saying abruptly. Deliberately he straightened his shoulders and sat back in his chair before, and shook his head again at Tony’s suggestion. “I can do it.”

Tony nodded and got up from the table, taking his plate with him to the sink. “Sure. But if you need to bail or whatever, just… I don’t know, do you have a safeword?”

“A what?”

“Nevermind,” Tony waved the question off, and instead he said, “if you need to bail from a conversation, just say vitamins.”

“Why?” Steve frowned, crossing his arms over his chest, not for the first time. 

“Because Boomer Bower, that’s why,” Tony reminded him, and Steve’s self-righteous expression drooped. “You can’t lie for shit, Steve. If you want this to work you will signal me the first chance you get, keep your talking to a minimum, and leave the improvising to me. All I need is a signal. Got it?”

Steve shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, looking vaguely penitent. “Yeah—yeah, got it.”

Tony blinked at him, concerned at first by Steve’s evident discomfort until the bewildering realization dawned. “Don’t tell me you got a b—” A scramble of paws scratching across wood and tiles interrupted him as Teddy suddenly dashed for the door, a clear indication that someone was there. Tony yanked the freezer open to dig out the bag of frozen broccoli, wrapped it up in a kitchen towel and threw it all at Steve. “Get decent, that’s probably your parents.” 

Tony left Steve in the kitchen with his head in his hands and a bag of flash-frozen organic broccoli against his crotch, and as Tony had suspected, he saw Joseph and Sarah waiting by the door through the window as soon as he stepped into the grand room. He hurried to the door to usher them in from the cold. 

Joseph’s expression was unreadable, but Sarah looked stunned in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. “Tony… is that Steve’s car in the driveway?” 

Tony grinned, a little lopsided but beaming all the same, and he stepped forward to hug her. “It is: he’s here. He’ll be right out,” Tony promised them both, though Joseph had still barely moved.

A quiet set of footfalls came from the kitchen, and soon Steve came into view. Sarah rushed over to him immediately, wrapping her arms around her son and drawing him in close. There was no hesitation in Steve’s response. He melted into her embrace and pressed his forehead down against her shoulder, seeking comfort in the crook of his mother’s neck as he would have all his life, and after all this time he held her desperately close. 

“Oh, sweetheart, my sweetheart, you make me so happy!” she praised him dearly, pressing a kiss to his cheek before she took a small step back to look at him. She beamed up at him with a watery smile. “You both do.”

Steve had no time to respond before his father approached, walking in quiet, measured steps. Steve stiffened and straightened his back, giving his dad a polite nod in greeting. “Hi pop,” he started to say, but got no further. Contrary to his stiff approach, Joseph crossed the space between them with two quick steps and wrapped his son up in a powerful hug. 

“Welcome home, son,” he whispered, his words trembling with feeling. Steve hesitantly brought a hand up to pat his dad on the back, but he stared at Tony wide-eyed over Joseph’s shoulder. A heartfelt greeting from his dad was the last welcome he had expected. 

Unable to contain herself, Sarah wrapped her arms around them both, sandwiching Steve between herself and Joseph right there in the foyer. Steve burrowed closer, cautiously drawing both his parents in toward himself; a small, disbelieving huff of a laugh escaped him then, and he could only shake his head at the unexpected welcome. 

“I see you’ve met Tony.”

*** 

It turned out Jackie and Mike had been unable to get out of the house on time, and would meet up with them on the way to the pumpkin patch for the tree lighting. Tony got a hold of Teddy and wrangled the little dog into a harness before the four of them were on their way. 

Tony babbled to fill up the awkward silence, telling them about the stars and the constellations, the planets and the potential rewards of space travel, and out of respect for the mixed company, he also told the story of the Soviet Pushinka and her love affair with the Kennedy’s dog, Charlie. Little by little, he and Sarah slowed their pace to fall behind, and little by little Joseph and Steve drifted farther ahead together. 

“Why did you do it, son?” Joseph asked Steve quietly when they had been walking quietly in relative privacy for long enough. 

“You don’t like Tony—” 

“Oh, no, I do,” Joseph assured him, “he is a bit of an acquired taste, but I admit I have grown fond of him. It’s just the secrecy, not sharing in the decision. I can’t help but feel it is… part of our on-going battle.”

“Oh, pop—”

“No, no it’s alright, don’t say a thing. Tony said it all,” Joseph interjected, still trying to make his point. 

“He has?”

Joseph nodded, and slowed to a halt to face his son. Steve, slowing to match his father’s pace, wasn’t quite sure what to expect when he faced his dad. “What I’m trying to say, Steve, is, is that I’m sorry. I apologize.”

Steve skirted a glance at Tony, caught completely off guard. “...you do?” 

“Yes, I, well,” Joseph nodded to himself, and seemed to notice the attention Sarah and Tony were giving them now so he threw an arm around Steve’s shoulders and started walking again, shoulder to shoulder. “I won’t deny that I was ...upset,” he tried again, “first going into debt for a degree that won’t make much of an income, then a mortgage to build a house that you won’t live in and you won’t sell, so you end up with the mortgage payments and that crazy rent in the city—”

“Don’t start again, pop,” Steve complained, but to his surprise, for the first time Joseph did stop. 

“Yes, no, no I won’t,” he promised, nodding to himself. “Because finally you do make good decisions! Tony, for instance. Plus now, giving up the apartment and coming back here.”

Steve stopped walking immediately and spun on his heel to level his anger on Tony. “You told them I was giving up my apartment?”

Tony and Sarah came to an abrupt halt behind them, and Tony stammered at the sudden accusation. “Uh,” he stalled, “let me think...”

But Joseph threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders and turned him around again, leading them onwards towards the town square. “What he told us was how sorry you felt, like the other week when you cried,” Steve’s head whipped around to stare at his dad, and Joseph quickly shook his head to allay any concerns. “There’s no shame in it, son. Just don’t do it too often; nobody likes a crybaby.”

With a strangled groan of frustration Steve spun around on his heel again, this time glaring at Tony. “You told them I was sorry?”

“Well, uh,” Tony stammered again, taken aback. “You did say you regretted the situation, remember?”

“Alright, sure, I do, but I never said I was _giving up my apartment_.”

“Sweetheart,” Sarah said quietly, taking a few steps closer to reach out to him, “Tony’s intentions were good.”

“Yeah, yeah, his intentions,” Steve glowered, “that’s a whole separate subject, isn’t it, _dear?_ ”

Tony’s lips thinned into a straight line, setting his jaw in anger. “Up yours, Rogers.”

“Oh, nicely put—what a knight in shining armor, right mom?” Steve bit out in anger and glared after him as Tony turned to walk away. “Look, mom, dad, I didn’t particularly want to, to say this right now, but I think you should know that—that, that Tony and I are separated.”

Sarah’s hands covered her heart in an instant, her face falling in complete shock. “ _What?_ ” 

Tony made his way over to her without thinking, reaching for her shoulder gently to offer comfort. Beside them, Joseph could only stare at Steve in disbelief. “Wait—what are you saying, son?”

“I’m saying the marriage is a bust. Go ahead pop, queue up another lecture about how the immature Steve Rogers screwed up again,” Steve announced, throwing his hands in the air in his frustration and walking off with his fists shoved deep in his pockets. 

Shocked, both Sarah and Joseph turned to Tony, clearly eager for an explanation. He gave them an awkward smile to express his shared confusion, then held up a finger to indicate a quick pause before he hurried after Steve, Teddy trotting in a hurry beside him. 

“Steve!” he called, trying to get his attention. “Steve, you—Steve!” It took a while, but he finally caught up to Steve and latched on to him by the arm, spinning him around. “Hey, hey look, I know I goofed, okay, I was winging it.”

“You told them I was sorry?” Steve hissed, directing all his anger at Tony. “I’m _not_ sorry I built that house, Tony, I’m not sorry I took a chance—love was worth the risk—”

“I know, I get it,” Tony lied, trying to soothe him, “I get it. But I thought I was doing you a favor bringing you and your dad back together again; your dad cares about you, Steve, don’t you get it?”

“He’s my dad!” Steve growled, “of course he cares! But that doesn’t mean he’s always right.”

Tony stared at him, swallowing back his immediate reaction to Steve’s assumption until he could settle down and address the matter at hand first. “I’m on your side, Steve. But is that mistake really enough to get separated over?”

“No,” Steve sighed, the fight leaving him little by little, “no, of course not. We got separated because of Boomer.” 

“Damnit, Steve, Boomer isn’t anything, he’s just a blip, a one-night stand,” Tony promised, lowering his voice to soothe the last embers of Steve’s frustration. “You know he means nothing to me, I just came up here to sort things out. That’s not the same thing as a separation.”

Steve sighed, and the last of his tension seeped out of his shoulders, and he nodded quietly in understanding. Relieved, Tony mirrored his more relaxed posture, giving him a bit of a lopsided grin. “Don’t scare me like that,” he muttered, and Steve snorted at the absurdity, opening his arms a little for a hug that Tony immediately stepped in to. 

“I’m sorry, Tony,” he murmured, “from now on I promise I’ll leave all the improvisations to you.”

***

It took next to nothing for Tony to convince Sarah and Joseph that Steve’s outburst was due to stress and little else. By the time Mike and Jackie joined up with them, the two of them were walking together, arm in arm, as Tony filled Steve in on the renovations he was planning for Sarah and Joseph’s closet. Mike, interested in the dimensions and potential Tony invoked so easily, was quickly drawn into conversation with him. 

“Doesn't look like you'll be getting your husband back anytime soon,” Jackie teased, nudging Steve’s ribs gently. 

“I’ll survive,” Steve answered, only barely managing a straight face. 

“I’ll take your word for it. Who knows when we’ll see you again, dear?”

“None of that, now,” Sarah interrupted her, “my son has only just come home: don't make him regret it.”

Jackie gave her a pout, but then turned to Steve with a big, innocent smile, and prompted, “So, Steve…”

Steve eyed her warily, but having accepted his own innate ability to put his foot in his mouth, he only hummed softly in question. 

“Tell us about Tony…” she prompted in a playful sing-song, “how did you two meet?”

“Well, Tony—”

“No,” Tony cut in before Steve could say any more. “No, Steve never tells it right. I'll tell you later, Aunt Jackie, promise.” 

She pouted a little, but she didn't lose interest. “When is your anniversary?” 

“August 27th,” Tony answered at the same time as Steve said, “July 14th.”

The four parents watched them in silence, each with a different reaction: Mike looked blindsided, Joseph shook his head in dismay, Sarah looked hurt, and Jackie, ever so curious, looked confused. 

“No, baby—that's the day we met,” Tony clarified, “we got married on August 27th, the day they removed my mask.”

Sarah was the only one brave enough to ask. “Your what?”

“We met in the hospital,” Steve said a little clumsily, recalling the story Tony had told him earlier. But Tony smiled at him fondly, humming in agreement. 

“It's a long story,” Tony warned them, and he casually wandered closer to Steve as he talked, in part to make Steve feel better, but also to be in arm's reach if Steve got brave and tried to gab. Sarah and Jackie, intrigued by the thought of a mask being involved in their first meeting, pushed to hear the story at once, listening to Tony’s story with rapt attention; Joseph and Mike, who vocalized no interest in hearing how Steve and Tony met, trailed the others closely and in silence, as attentive and curious as their counterparts. 

Despite the festivities and Christmas market attractions all around them they all stuck together, Jackie and Sarah asking questions in turn that Tony answered and parried without hesitation; Steve, as promised, remained silent for the entire exchange. Every now and then curious friends and neighbors would come up to meet Tony, only to be shocked at Steve’s actual presence, but as each of them walked away with yet another piece of the deception, Steve grew more uncomfortable. With every beautiful story about their life that Tony crafted, every additional lie, Steve couldn't help but feel worse, and soon he was unable to meet anyone’s eyes for all his anger and his guilt. How many lies would it take for him to finally have a chance to marry Peggy?

They watched the tree lighting together as a family, and soon afterwards, without being asked, Tony excused them for the night with yet another lie, this time about Steve being too tired to be out in polite company. They said their goodbyes, made their plans for the next day, and soon enough Tony whisked Steve out from the crowds towards the yellow house. 

Steve let go of Tony's arm without any preamble as soon as they were out of sight from the crowds. “Do you have to sound so happy when you lie?” he asked Tony when he finally broke the silence. “Is it that easy for you?” 

Tony didn't look at Steve, huddled in a little on himself as they walked back. “It makes them happy,” Tony told Steve after some time. “A good lie is always easy for the receiver.”

“It doesn't look like it’s any less easy for you,” Steve noted tersely, but Tony didn't rise to the bait. Instead he just sighed and shrugged in his coat, a hollow, dismissive gesture. 

“Good.”

*** 

The next morning, Tony woke earlier than usual to the irresistible smells of coffee, pancakes, and glazed bacon. He rolled out of bed and onto his feet with mediocre precision, and he shuffled out in his woolen socks and little else in pursuit of food. His eager nose and insistent belly took him straight to the kitchen, where a startled yelp shook him out of his half-sleep stupor. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he finally recognized the individuals in the kitchen to be Steve and Peggy, ruddy faced and dressed in winter-friendly running gear, clearly in to eat breakfast after a morning run. Teddy sat beside the table, gazing up at them with soulful eyes. 

“Tony!” Peggy said with a smile as soon as she noticed him, her voice only faltering a moment when she noticed he was wearing nothing but socks and boxers. She waved a little uncertainly from the table, and in as normal a voice as possible, said, “Good morning, Tony. Come join us, come eat—there’s plenty left.”

Tony blinked at them both, his gaze lingering on Steve who would not meet his eyes. Slowly, he shook his head. He ventured far enough into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee. It wasn’t until he had his back to them and was mostly out of the kitchen that he muttered, “No, thanks. Mike’s workshop. Bye.”

“Tony?” Steve called after him, getting up from the table and walking out after him, but Tony managed to reach the bedroom first and shut the door right in Steve’s face. “Come on, Tony, it’s not like that.”

“Whatever, Steve,” Tony called from his side of the door, haphazardly throwing some jeans and layering a sweater over his long-sleeved t-shirt over his tank top in some vague order. “I hope you’re happy together.”

Steve was suspiciously quiet on the other side of the door, so when Tony opened the door and nearly walked into him he was genuinely surprised. 

“I ran into her when I was walking Roosevelt this morning,” Steve told him quietly, “breakfast just… happened.”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Tony muttered noncommittally, trying to get around him without any success. Steve was nearly as broad as the door when he wanted to be. “I don’t—I don’t care, okay? Just… if you want her to fall for you, I suggest you don’t cheat on me. Once a cheater, always a cheater, and I doubt Peggy’d aspire to be cuckqueened in the future.”

“I won’t cheat on you,” Steve promised, then quickly amended his statement. “I am not cheating on you, Tony. It’s just breakfast.”

“Sure, because having your ex invite me— _your husband_ —to _leftovers_ in our damn house isn’t cheating?” Tony hissed, finally having enough and shoving his way past Steve to get out. “Fuck you, Steve.”

He didn’t stop when Steve called his name, all but running down the hill away from the house in his anger. The effort kept him warm, and by the time he reached the other side of town where Jackie and Mike lived, he was running hot even though he had left his jacket back home. He climbed the stairs two at a time to the front door and knocked briskly. 

There was a faint conversation of confused voices, and moments later the door swung open. Bucky stared him down in the doorway. 

“You live with your parents?” were the first words out of Tony’s mouth, because he was pretty sure that out of all of them, Bucky probably made the best money. 

“It’s Saturday morning,” Bucky said slowly, in case Tony was particularly thick. “It’s family breakfast.”

“Tony?” Jackie called from the kitchen, and soon she pushed Bucky back to the kitchen to see Tony herself. “What’s going on, is everything alright? You’re—you look awful. Have you eaten, darling?”

“No, but I don’t, really—time,” Tony stammered his way to an explanation and tried to shrug it off. “Never had the time, and now it’s a habit.”

“Nonsense, it’s Saturday, everybody eats breakfast: get in here,” she said and ushered him in ahead of herself as if he had said nothing. “Bucky, set the table for one more.”

“Yes, mother,” he grumbled, but all he really did was sit down when Tony and Jackie came around the corner, a chair and a place setting already there for him. Tony looked from Bucky to the plate and chair that had clearly been ready before Jackie asked for it, and made no further arguments about joining them. 

“Real eager to get started on those shelves today, am I right?” Mike welcomed him with a big grin, “you look like you could use a few hours with a hammer and an anvil.”

Tony couldn’t help a little laugh, strained though it was. “You’re not wrong.”

“Here,” Bucky said and shoved a plate of bacon into Tony’s hands. They weren’t the thick-cut strips of glazed pork belly bacon Betsy had sent over as a gift, but they were crispy, warm, and irresistible. Tony barely slid a few onto his plate before three pancakes were stacked on his plate for him, along with two boiled eggs. 

“Biscuit?” Jackie asked, putting one on his plate anyway. “The butter is salt free; we don’t do much salt in this house anymore.”

“Mom never really liked salt either,” Tony said quietly, picking up the biscuit and taking a bite of it plain. “Said it made her ankles swell; not great for dancing.”

Jackie’s face lit up, “Oh wow, your mother’s a dancer?”

“Off-off Broadway, long time ago,” Tony answered with a smile, beaming a little with pride even when he tried not to let it get the better of him. “She retired when I was ten, but we always went to shows together.”

“You tell her I’ll have lots of questions for her when she comes to visit,” Jackie told him with a mischievous wink, “some of us had similar dreams when we were young and wild and free...”

“But then you married a carpenter from some backwater village called Dobbs Mill,” Mike finished for her, earning himself a loud smack on the arm for the trouble. “And all your dreams went up in smoke!”

“My _dream_ is to see a grandchild before I go blind from old age,” she said with a pointed look at Bucky. “Unless you’re bisexual, too, dear.” 

“We can’t all be so lucky,” Bucky muttered, taking a big bite of bacon just to have a reason not to answer any questions. 

“You don’t happen to have any single female friends, do you, Tony?” Jackie asked, to Bucky’s evident horror. “He runs his own business and he’s got a good education.”

“Mom!” Bucky glowered, “Stop asking everyone if they know single women.”

Tony stared down at his plate very intently in his effort not to cackle at the breakfast table, a feat made infinitely more difficult by Mike and Jackie’s gleeful laughter. “I—I do, actually,” he confessed quietly, and Jackie was on him in an instant. 

“You do?”

“Pepper, she’s the sharpest and most intimidating woman I know,” he said, duly proud. “She’s getting her MBA at Sloan.” 

“But does she like cats?” Mike asked, lowering his voice as if it had been a secret. 

“Sorry,” Tony said, struggling to keep the smile off his face. “She’s allergic.”

“No!” Mike cried, and Jackie pretended to weep into her eggs. “So nearly perfect!”

Bucky glared at Tony with an expression that promised pain if this ever left the table. His palpable anger was the last straw for Tony, and he burst out laughing right there at the table, triggering a chorus of laughter from both Jackie and Mike. Only Bucky sat there in silence, glowering and annoyed, chewing on his breakfast. 

“So, what’ve you got in mind for those shelves of yours?” Mike prompted, smothering his pancake with butter and maple syrup, and rolling two strips of bacon into his flapjack taco. “You said something about sliding shelves?”

“Flexible shelves—Flexishelves? Intellishelves?” Tony said, only half-aware of what he was saying as he watched Mike eat for a few moments, then glancing down at his own plate, poking at his eggs. “I thought I’d set up a system with three storage units, a seasonal one, another one for shoes, and then—the rest, the—what you keep for the other seasons, you know. It’s a little like, uh, a dry cleaner’s rotating rack but with shelves and drawers in multiple directions? That way they can put away the summer clothes without reducing the utility of the space they’ve got—it’s a pretty big closet; hell, it’s the size of my bedroom.”

Bucky frowned, eyeing him suspiciously. “Your bedroom?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied with perfect calm, “in my student apartment, before I met Steve. A shoebox—and it would’ve been even worse if I wasn’t so young, they’d made me share it.”

“At university?” Jackie wondered, trying not to sound too concerned. “How old were you, darling?”

“Uh, I—I was home-schooled,” Tony explained quickly, “so they let me start early. Dad insisted.” 

“Then let’s keep it going! Another head start,” Mike decided with a big smile and grabbed a biscuit as he got up from the table, waving Tony to come along with him. “And don’t let your mother clean the table alone, son.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky drawled, rolling his eyes to himself. 

***

As soon as Mike introduced Tony to the tools and supplies in the workshop, Tony set to work. What he was building for Sarah and Joseph, Mike was going to model smaller for Jackie for the kitchen, and with Tony’s help they had their designs and plans done up in a few hours. They weren't interrupted until lunchtime, when Bucky knocked on the open doorframe to the workshop. 

“Dad, Uncle Joe’s here,” he said, “and I'm heading out.” 

Mike thanked him, and walked around to clap Bucky on the shoulder affectionately on his way out to see Joe. 

But Bucky didn't head back to the house with him. “You know lies of omission are still lies, don't you?” he said to Tony, apropos of nothing. 

Tony spun around from the workstation where he was making his measurements and stared at Bucky. The man was hovering, tall, broad, and angry in the doorway, staring him down for reasons Tony couldn't quite understand. 

“What—what happened?” 

“Why did you come here, Tony?” Bucky asked in clear annoyance, all but growling his word. “Peggy shows up at your house so you run away?”

“Mike and I had plans,” Tony started to say, becoming more confused than alarmed as he tried to piece Bucky’s accusation together. “We’re working.” 

“And you think this is helpful?” 

Tony dropped his ruler and pencil and turned to finally face Bucky. “Sure, mhm, yeah—helpful? Right. Cause of the people in this room, who is a, not invited, and b, not of use?” he wondered with the biting anger born of resentment. “If you have something to say, say it to my face, or get the fuck out.”

“Steve is thick—” 

“I know; I haven't choked on anything since I met him.” 

Bucky whole face wrinkled in a grimace. “Running away won't solve anything.” 

“People are responsible for their own shit!” Tony bit out with a sudden rage, furious even as he took a few steps backwards, shrinking in on himself in his retreat. “I can't help him when I'm his fucking problem—well, sorry not sorry: I can't _be_ her. Let him sit there with his fantasy and rot.”

“Hey man, easy, easy,” Bucky said slowly and held his palms up in a placating gesture, and slowly he moved closer to where Tony had unwittingly backed himself up against the workstation and seemed as agitated as a wounded animal because of it. “All I'm saying is, stop acting like you're alone. You ain't the only one wishing Steve could get his head out of his ass.” 

Tony looked at him a little dazed, like Bucky had said the very last possible combination of words. “What?” he finally asked, the single word catching in his dry throat. 

“Run anywhere, but don't run away.”

Tony blinked up at him, genuinely confused. “But that doesn't make any sense,” he insisted, “what?”

“Hey, Bucky, you still here?” Mike called from the yard, and moments later he and Joseph appeared in the doorway. “Oh good—just remembered your car, son, give me ten minutes.” 

Mike grabbed a box of tools and was out the door. Bucky looked between Joseph and Tony, then with the smallest nod he stalked out, too, presumably after his dad. 

“Sarah and I were thinking about joining you and Steve for dinner today,” Joseph said quietly, deliberately calm and neutral in his words and his tone. “Would you have time to come home from the workshop early? Maybe four o’clock?”

“I—sure, yeah,” Tony answered immediately, “yeah, I can do that, four o'clock.”

“Good,” Joseph said, and that was the end of it. “Mike sounded very excited about your plans, Tony. He was telling me he's never seen anything like it.” 

“Oh. Well, it's—it’s nothing complicated, it's just the track; everything else—”

“Could you show me?” Joseph asked to interrupt Tony’s self-deprecating ramble, but he only came closer when Tony nodded his agreement, albeit a little jerkily. He took a look at the handful of blue sheets where Tony’s dresser and Mike’s cabinet were sketched out in detail, moving them with the kind of care he might have learned from handling Steve's artwork. “Did you make these?”

“In part; I only helped with the cabinet—Mike is building this folding shelf to hold platters and other unusually shaped things; it collapses into the door, it's really cool. It'll need expanded hinges, but we can make those—I borrowed the idea from him and, I think, if my math is right, I'll get a similar but thinner piece built into the side of your shelves for jewelry, or ties—or, or keys, anything small that you, you might need. Or, whatever, I don't know, maybe it's unnecessary, we don't have to—”

“It sounds incredible, Tony,” Joseph calmly interrupted again. “Your creativity is marvelous. Are these for the shoes?” 

By the time Mike came back, Tony was drawing the shelving unit and cabinets on new sheets of paper, systematically describing their details and functions to Joseph. He made his way to a small fridge in the corner and pulled out three bottles of beer, twisted the caps off and offered one each to Tony and Joseph as he joined in to see what Tony was saying, listening with eager interest. And when the two of them got back to work, Joseph hung around to watch, always a beer in hand and another hand available to help hold something in place or hold down a piece of measuring tape. 

It wasn't until several hours later that Joseph got a call on his cell, and after a brief conversation he carefully interrupted both Tony and Mike. 

“That was Sarah,” he said first, “she said it is dinner time, and if we're not at the house soon she will come here herself.” 

“Take the car,” Mike suggested, “Jackie was saying it might snow tonight.” 

Tony stared down at where his shelves were coming together, but still in pieces. He scrambled for a valid argument to delay returning to the yellow house, but Joseph was already putting his coat on and accepting the car keys from Mike, and before Tony knew it a jacket was being pressed into his hands, a non-verbal command to get ready. 

“Let's go,” Joseph urged, and thanked Mike before heading out to the car. Tony thanked Mike, too, and agreeing to meet again tomorrow, he finally shuffled out after Joseph. It only took him a minute to find the car, and he dropped into the passenger seat without a word, rubbing his bare hands together for warmth. 

The drive home was slippery and unsteady, at times even veering too far into the shoulder. But it was dark, freezing, and windy, so Tony considered it relatively more comfortable than what a long walk in similar conditions would have been like.

Teddy dashed out of the house the moment the front door was opened and tumbled into Tony’s shins in his excitement, bouncing and whimpering for attention. Tony picked him up and walked around the other two cars in the driveway—Sarah’s and Steve’s—and hurried to follow Joseph into the house. 

“Oh, honey,” Sarah greeted him in the foyer, and Tony set Teddy down gently before Sarah bundled him up in a hug. “It's good to see you, dear. Come, give me that,” she said quietly and took Tony’s jacket from him, “there is someone I'd like you to meet. He is in the sitting room, go on.” 

“If it is your son, I already—” Tony was saying as he followed Joseph and Teddy into the grand room, where Steve was already sitting on the couch across from a man in one of the armchairs. It wasn’t until the man stood up and turned to greet Tony that he recognized him as one of many family friends he’d been introduced to by Sarah. “Father Hughes?” 

“Good afternoon, Tony,” the Father welcomed him with a kind smile, reaching to shake Tony’s hand. “It is a pleasure to see you again. Please, have a seat.”

“Hi—I, likewise,” Tony said quietly, a little distracted by the irritated expression on Steve’s face. “Is everything alright?”

“That’s why I am here,” Father Hughes agreed, gesturing for Sarah and Joseph to also come into the room. Sarah sat down on the couch beside Tony, gently taking his hand, while Joseph paced behind the sofa, his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. 

“Alright, now that we are all here. In the brief time that I have gotten to know Tony, some of it directly of course, but also from what I hear from people in town, I must tell you, Steven, that I was shocked this morning when your parents came to me and said that you were both experiencing difficulties. But,” he added, more gently, “just by talking it out, which we could arrange, say, on a weekly basis, perhaps at the church—”

Steve, unable to listen to Father Hughes’ patient, gentle words about how their sham marriage was worth saving, got to his feet and strode away from the sofas, pacing like a caged animal by the window. 

“Steven, what is the matter?” Father Hughes asked calmly, unaware of how his soothing voice only frustrated Steve further. He waited until his fists didn’t itch to pound through the wall before answering Father Hughes’s question.

“No. No, I am not going to marriage counseling with this man, and that is final.”

“Steven Grant Rogers, I am disappointed in you,” Joseph reproved at once, raising his voice in a way Tony had never heard, and never wanted to hear again. “You’re acting as if you’ve gotten everything you want out of this relationship and now you want out. Well, marriage is different—”

“Dr. Rogers, please—” Father Hughes tried to interrupt, but Joseph wasn’t having any of it. 

“No. He must understand. Marriage is different from a one night stand, young man,” he told Steve in his anger, and Steve could only stare in absolute disbelief. “Or it used to be; and it still ought to be, in my opinion.”

Steve’s jaw worked in his irritation. “I can’t believe this—why is everyone coming down on me for! I had a good life in Boston, I was past all this—this is all Tony, can’t you see that? He’s the one who did it, he’s behind all this!”

Tony and Sarah, sitting next to each other on the couch, stared at up Steve with similar expressions of disbelief, and Sarah wrapped an arm around Tony. 

“The one who did what, Steven?”

“The one who made up—” Steve started to say, almost spilling the truth in front of everyone, but he choked on his words and, after an embarrassing struggle to find a decent way out of his own mistake, confessed in an exaggerated show of heartache: “—who made up, made up—who made up with his old boyfriend and, and bedded down with him. There, you wanted all the dirty details. Are you happy? There you are, all our private affairs: Tony slept with his old boyfriend after we were married.”

A terrible silence fell across the room. Steve turned his back on the room to stare out the window, supposedly in his heartbreak. Father Hughes, dumbfounded, had no words to say. 

Sarah, who had very delicately removed her arm from around Tony’s shoulders, cleared her throat and slowly stood up. “Maybe, ah. Maybe we should let you all speak in private. We will wait out on the porch.”

Father Hughes stood up out of respect as Sarah got up from the couch, and offered them both a small nod as they walked out. When he sat down again, he looked at Tony, who, until now, had not said a word. 

“Tony, is there anything you wish to share?”

Tony glanced at Steve’s turned back, then with an appropriately shamefaced expression said, “I was bored.”

Steve spun around, incredulous. “— _What!_ ” 

“No, let him get it out now,” Father Hughes said to Steve, then with an encouraging nod to Tony, he asked, “Could you tell me more?”

“Well, once I left university my whole life became working at the restaurant and the auto mechanic, and that’s it. He never let me leave the apartment, didn’t want to go out—too tired, he said, on those rare occasions he actually came home from work before eleven. He never goes along with what I want to do—he doesn’t even let me do it on my own.”

“Be specific, Tony,” Father Hughes suggested, “that way we move away from accusations and closer to tangible resolutions.”

“Well,” Tony said quietly, glancing at Steve and then shrugging a little to himself. “Alright, so, there was this ceramics class I was curious about—I thought we could do it together: I love making things, and Steve enjoys art, I thought it would be a great combination of our interests. They had a great evening class at the community college, but Steve said it was too expensive. And sometimes I want to go to the theater, but do you think we can afford that? No. And then he complains about my thighs,” he said with a huff, “so I thought great, I’ll go to dancing class—exercise, posture, right? Stronger ankles—it’s great, the whole package. But no, even that’s too much.”

“I can’t believe you,” Steve muttered, already pacing again and scrubbing angry hands through his hair. “I can’t believe this.”

“No, this is good!” Father Hughes told Steve, then to Tony again said, “this is terrific Tony: purge.”

“Sure, but why—the community college classes I’m interested in cost less than two hundred dollars, you think he’ll let me do that?” Tony said, dejected. “He doesn’t understand that it costs money to live.”

“Oh, the fucking irony— _I_ don’t understand the cost of living?” Steve grumbled, hands firmly on his waist in an effort to keep from gesticulating wildly in his indignation. “Right, fine! Alright, then then then why don't you tell Father Hughes about the, the, uh—the tennis lessons! The tennis lessons you quit after three weeks? We had to pay the whole six month contract on that. The same thing happened with your—scuba, scuba certification—for your birthday I got you that, and in Boston? You know how expensive that was? You couldn't guess how many months I skipped going out with coworkers for lunch—hell, anything I could forgo just so I could see you happy, so that you could experience one of your adventures. And what happened? Did you ever go?” he paused expectantly, livid, but Tony was too spellbound by Steve's unexpected performance to respond in time. “Did you? No! Of course not! Classic Tony: Thousands of dollars wasted, because you would rather tinker on a fucking engine. We don't have expendable income, Tony!” 

“Oh, get the fu—after all those snide comments you made about me in my rubber suit?” 

“Snide comments? When? What did I—okay, so I said you look like a porpoise—”

“And that’s a compliment where you come from?”

“—Flipper was a porpoise!”

“Do I look like I care!” Tony cried, “I don’t want to be compared to Flipper!”

“I wasn’t comparing you to Flipper, Tony!” Steve shouted back. 

“—can’t you understand how that makes me feel?”

“—I was just saying that he’s cute and you’re cute, and then suddenly it’s this great, big deal—”

Father Hughes raised his hands between them, trying to get their attention. “Please, try to speak one at a time—”

“Shut up!” Steve snapped at Father Hughes, then turned right back to Tony. “Look, okay, here’s the problem: every time I come home, you’re just going through everything, organizing—organizing everything again and again! My books, my magazines, my _underwear drawer_ —I don’t want my underwear folded, Tony!”

“That’s because you leave all your clothes everywhere!” Tony shouted back, yelling over Steve to be heard. “You can’t get dressed without littering five different outfits all around the apartment—you can keep your art supplies organized, sure, but your fucking ties? I found one in the bread box last month—the _bread box_ , Steve.”

“You used to find that charming—”

“I like the final product, sure, but is it worth the mop-up job? No! And for ‘no expendable income,’ you sure like your hair products—”

“—and last time I went with cheaper product you said you mistook me for Vanilla Ice—”

“—I said you looked the way Vanilla Ice sounds, there’s a difference—”

“—neither is flattering, Tony!”

“Well excuse me, Mr. Sensitive!” Tony threw his hands in the air in frustration, looking all but ready to strangle Steve. “Next time you look particularly gorgeous I’ll be sure to compare you to some waddling marine mammal! The height of bougie compliments that us lowly mechanics—”

“I have _never_ treated you like some ‘lowly mechanic,’” Steve interrupted him to say, expressing himself with visceral feeling. “I am proud of you—I admire you; you’re handsome, and clever, and so thoughtful it hurts to—”

Tony closed his mouth for a moment and stared up at him, his fighting spirit rapidly mutating into confusion. “You what?” 

“Why else would I ever want to spend time with you, Tony?” Steve asked him, sounding so sincere that Tony could barely find it in him doubt Steve. “I’m trusting you with my happiness. This is important to me, Tony, I need you on my side.”

“This is great progress,” Father Hughes said gently in the silence, gesturing for Steve to come closer and to take a seat beside his husband. “This is very good. Now, why don’t we set some ground rules here. This communication needs to continue; even if you shout, if you continue to use specific examples, as you can see you will come to a better understanding. To do this, I think it is worth living under the same roof full-time again. Can you do that, Steven?”

Steve knew better than to open his mouth and let the resentment show, so instead he simply nodded in the affirmative. 

“That’s good, great. And Tony,” Father Hughes said, turning to him. “Let’s work on self-discipline: sticking with something once you’ve started it. Dancing or ceramics classes, for instance, continuing your education and development.”

“—Father Hughes, you must understand: I would love for Tony to continue his education, but I can’t afford it.”

But Father Hughes only smiled at him as if he was in on some joke Steve was unaware of, and in a gently teasing voice Father Hughes asked, “Even with your big promotion that the whole town is talking about?”

Steve closed his eyes and hung his head in defeat, and beside him Tony beamed with pride, gently rubbing a hand across Steve’s tense shoulders. “He’s right, baby: we’re in the big leagues now.”

*** 

Father Hughes left soon thereafter, satisfied that Steve and Tony had agreed to his recommendations. Sarah and Joseph stayed for dinner, a chipotle meatloaf with all the fixings that Sarah had brought from home for them to eat together—their first family meal in the yellow house. It wasn’t until several hours later that they left, relieved and glad of their intervention, and Steve and Tony found themselves alone in each other’s company again. 

Tony sprawled over the couch with his back propped up against the cushioned arm, his puppy likewise sprawled over him, likely making up for a whole day without Tony and also making sure his favorite biped wouldn’t escape without his notice again. A faint _‘pop!’_ came from the kitchen, loud enough for Teddy to perk his ears but not enough for Tony to interrupt his petting. Some minutes later Steve walked out of the kitchen with two generous glasses of wine, and he offered one to Tony. It was eagerly accepted. 

“Are you going to be okay with the daily commute?” Tony wondered, watching Steve settle down on the floor with his back against the couch just within reach, tearing a new architecture magazine out of its plastic wrapping. 

“If I go in at off-peak hours it should be fine,” Steve gave a little shrug, starting to leaf through the magazine slowly, reading every page. 

“What’s that?” Tony asked, interrupting Teddy’s petting to point vaguely at the magazine; the five seconds it took to gesture at the magazine in Steve’s hands were, however, intolerable to Teddy, who whined until Tony put his hand back on him and gave his ears an extra vigorous scratching. 

“EVolo,” Steve flipped the magazine closed to let him see the cover. “There’s only two issues per year. Their focus is on the future of modern buildings, both as creative designs and as advancements in sustainability and technology. This one looks at the twelve modern marvels to look out for in the next five years.”

Tony smiled as Steve explained the magazine’s objective, and he turned his head to better read the small print. “Is your company behind any of them?”

“I wish,” Steve said with a tired sigh, flipping the magazine open again and skimming through in search of something to show him. “Mosby used to be creative, but for the past ten years he’s been stuck on this eyesore skyscraper pattern—look, like this,” he held it open to the two-page spread on the coming Stark Industries skyscraper set to be completed in four years. “So the design’s pretty ugly, the standard phallic over-compensation you see in Manhattan, but it says here that since his wife died ten years ago, Howard Stark’s increasingly been pushing every boundary in sustainable energy. This building will be his biggest contribution yet: his arc reactor technology will power half the building for the next twenty years.”

Tony smirked at Steve’s obvious distaste for Howard’s prized concept. “How would you change it?”

“For a building branded as a green, sustainable structure, the design is very… artificial. Unnatural?” Steve tried to explain, struggling to find ways of expressing his criticism. “It’s unique in places, but this would have been a great opportunity to design a building with a more organic structure, with curves and natural shapes instead of perfect angles. And smart as he is, you’d think the leading genius of our time could turn all or some of that glass into solar panels. …maybe add rounded balconies for urban gardens for real green to reflect the green energy...” he shrugged a little then, glancing at the building one more time before turning back to Tony. “Why? Do you like these better?”

“Not really,” Tony admitted, “but I’m happy you don’t like it either.”

Steve gave him a curious look, but when Tony didn’t volunteer an explanation, Steve took a sip of his wine and nodded a little to himself, turning his attention back to the magazine. Since he was on the page about Stark, and the Stark Tower was quite well rated as the fourth most anticipated building in the next five years, Steve stayed on that page and read about the man and the vision behind the Stark Tower. Quite some time passed in companionable silence, Tony petting the sleepy dog sprawled possessively over his own body, and Steve reading about the future of his field. Tony’s relaxed breathing almost matched Teddy’s soft, snuffling snores when Steve quietly addressed him again. 

“Hey, Tony?” he asked under his breath, and Tony only just managed to hum in the form of a question in response. “I’m—I’m sorry I dropped Boomer into the conversation today. I shouldn’t have said anything about him.”

Tony was silent for a long time, but it was no longer from his sleepy haze. “You shouldn’t have,” he eventually agreed. 

“I could hide behind several excuses,” Steve continued, “but that wouldn’t change the effect it may have had on how my parents feel about you. I’m sorry about that; I know they mean a lot to you.”

“Thank you.”

Several long beats passed before Steve again broke the silence. “Hey, Tony?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think I’m gorgeous?” Steve asked innocently.

“I don’t know, Steve,” Tony deadpanned without bothering to open his eyes. “Do you really think I look like a porpoise?”

“Touché.”


	7. Happy dirty thirty (from the guy who's been dirty for years)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Chapter 7, where the rating bumps up to Explicit and canon birthdates don't matter!

The elevator doors pinged open, and Steve strode out onto his floor with purpose. With fast, sure steps he wove through the hallways and the bullpens, overtaking slow walkers and narrowly dodging gossiping old men, all while cradling his precious cup of coffee from all the world around him. He had just sat down at his table again when Natasha came around from her own office, a large drafting sheet in her hands. Without asking or even batting an eye, she spread her sheet out on top of the project he had been working on earlier. The request was familiar enough: a second pair of eyes often caught mistakes within minutes when the lead architect could consistently miss it, so he sat his coffee down on the desk next to him to buckle down and help. 

But Natasha didn’t say anything, or even look at him. Instead, she was openly counting all the various coffee mugs and to-go cups littering his office. 

“How long have you been here today, Rogers?”

He glanced at his wrist, noticed he had forgotten his watch, then looked up at the clock on the wall to do the math. “Since five… nine hours.” 

She stared at him for a beat before reaching over his table again, this time to pick up her sheet. 

“No! No, I’m good,” he insisted, clapping his hands down on either side of the paper to prevent her from removing it. “Let me—wait, is this a joke?” He waited until she’d taken her hands off the paper to reach for his own eraser and pencils, scrubbing at one section of the paper after another. “The only entrance you’ve got here is through the air vents.”

Natasha observe his corrections quietly, and maybe the way she twirled a curl of her hair around her finger meant she was somewhat concerned, but otherwise she seemed unbothered by her own mistakes. Instead she asked, “Are all these cups from today?”

“Mind your own business,” Steve muttered, sketching out an alternative way into the foyer for the private offices Natasha had started to create on this floor of her building. “Nat, seriously, what is this? You’ve got people exiting into a wall here.”

“That’s eleven cups, Steve,” she noted, her voice too dry to be truly unconcerned. “What’s going on?”

“What part of mind your own business was unclear?” 

“Steve, you missed all three department lunches last week. I’m across the hall and I barely see you. And Patricia’s been asking for you,” she added with a bit of a smirk. 

“I had to change my hours,” Steve explained with a shrug. “Damnit, Nat, what—you don’t put executive offices next to the bathrooms, what are you even—”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around on his seat to face her; knowing he'd only be delaying the inevitable, Steve gave in without a fight. “Why did you change your hours?”

“By orders of my marriage counselor,” he drawled, his lips pressed in an uncomfortable line. “You remember Tony?”

“Twenty-something juicy scrap of ass? Yeah,” she answered a little unsurely, “what’s he got to do with this?”

“It’s a long story, but since you won’t let me go back to work until you hear it,” he deadpanned, and Natasha shook her head slowly in agreement. “Tony was assaulted by his landlord, had nowhere to go, but he knew my house in Dobbs Mill was empty so he moved in—”

“—he what?”

“—and he convinced everyone we were married—”

“—Steve.”

“—charged his groceries, a dog, furniture, and now his college classes to my credit—”

“That’s thousands of dollars—”

“—and everyone loves him, my parents more than most—”

“ _Steve._ ”

“—but Peggy is loving the husband Tony makes me out to be, so we now have an agreement that we will ‘try to make this marriage work’ enough that Peggy will be impressed, then we will get divorced, I will marry Peggy, and then Tony goes on his merry way. In the meantime, he gets to live in the house and I pay for everything.”

Natasha stared at him in that way she had where one knew she was fuming despite her stony expression. 

“Peggy. As usual,” she noted dryly when she finally spoke again. “You’re an idiot, Rogers.”

“May I remind the judge and jury of Exhibit A: Mind your own business?”

“But why did you marry him, Steve?” 

“It’s not a real marriage,” he answered with a long-suffering sigh, finally having had enough and turning back to the drafting table to finish what she had put in front of him. “It’s just a simple arrangement where I will share my house with him, in exchange for which he will argue with me in public and generally make my life hell.”

She gave him a pitying look. “That’s marriage.”

“Fine, whatever. Nat, I need to get my work done,” he reminded her, gesturing at the sheets now stacked on his table. “And yours, too, apparently.”

Natasha shrugged, but also took a small step back as if to give him the space to work. “I thought you were nearly done with the bank job?”

“I finished the bank last Thursday,” he answered with a distracted air, going over his changes to Natasha’s work one last time to be sure he had cover all bases. “I’m working on a proposal… for Mosby, something I’ve been thinking about… I need that promotion, Nat, and I think this proposal might do it.”

Her brows arched in an unusual show of surprise, but she didn’t comment on his proposal. Instead she asked, “Steve, what does Tony have to do with your hours?”

“Our marriage counselor suggested I commute from Dobbs Mill,” Steve told her in a tired voice, clearly over it already. “So I’ve been working five to three since last week to avoid the worst of traffic.”

Natasha was quiet for several minutes as Steve wrapped up her draft and rolled it up for her, and in her own way she thanked him by saying, “I know some people who could take care of him for you. Widowers don’t need to divorce.”

Steve snorted and shook his head, deliberately ignoring the fact that she probably wasn’t joking. “He’s not that bad, Nat,” he said with a smile, “he’s been good, you know, at making it seem real—I don’t… I mean, I sure don’t know what I’m doing—”

“You are an appalling liar.”

“—and he’s a _great_ liar,” Steve countered, and ironically, it was not said without pride. “You should just hear the stories he tells. The way we met is the most romantic get-together I’ve ever heard, and I hope I can meet his mom some day; you know she used to dance professionally in New York? Aunt Jackie would just die.”

“Would that be his real mom or a fake mom?”

“Real mom,” Steve said at first, but then seemed to reconsider. “I think. Either way, he’s been… great. My parents love him; mom already calls him her son. And I don’t know what the hell he did, but he got my dad to apologize to me.”

Natasha’s expression didn’t change to show her curiosity, but her posture relaxed incrementally. “He did?”

“Yeah,” Steve grinned, amused, “and he’s probably heading over to their house right now, he’s been joining mom and dad on their after-work Jeopardy binges.”

“Steve,” Natasha said quietly, and for the first time she almost sounded hesitant. Picking up on her change of tone, Steve looked up from his sketching to give her his full attention. “How do you think your parents will react to your ‘divorce’?”

Steve’s shoulders drooped at the thought, shaking his head to himself. “Whatever you’re thinking? Worse.”

*** 

“Hey Tony,” Sam said as he approached the open truck engine Tony was leaning into. “How’s she looking?”

“I think she’s good,” Tony answered affectionately, patiently smoothing his hands over the once-ailing parts of her machinery and wiping the grime and grease off of her out of respect. “Yeah, of course she's been good; wasn’t more than a bad hiccup, was it darling?” he murmured as he gave her a final look-over and stepped back to lower the cab into place. “Want to give her a start?”

“You want to do the honors?” Sam asked, grinning as he dangled the keys in Tony’s direction. “Trust me on this: no car can compete with a truck like this.”

Tony grinned and shook his head, wiping his hands on a new, clean cloth. “Another time, when I have the time to drive,” Tony suggested without shame, and Sam could only laugh. 

“Alright, we’ll see what we can do,” Sam was saying as he climbed up behind the wheel to turn her on, “if she sounds good again, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind—hey!” he laughed when the engine roared to life, rumbling like her first day on the fleet. “Tony! Man, what did you do?”

“Like I said, just a hiccup,” Tony shrugged off. “Everything looking good behind the wheel?”

“Yeah, she’s like new,” Sam confirmed and shut off the engine again before climbing down. “We gotta celebrate this, come on—we’ve got beer, pizza—I bet you and your math-brain could wipe us at pool, so maybe we should do the darts—”

Surprised laughter bubbled out of Tony at the unexpected (and quite astute) assumption that he was good at pool, but he had to shake his head no. “Sorry, can’t miss Jeopardy today. Joe won the last round so this is—this is big.”

“Aw man, you got roped into Jeopardy with Dr. Rogers?” Sam grimaced, trying not to look too pitying. “He doesn’t fool around with Jeopardy.”

“He’s only leading 3-2 right now,” Tony grinned proudly, and with those words he tossed both the filthy and the only slightly greasy rags off into the bin. “But I’ll come by for the next shift, maybe we can take her for a spin?”

Whatever Tony had inadvertently said seemed to ignite a great thought in Sam’s mind, and with a big grin he suggested, “Want to ride her with me to Bucky’s 30th next week? Sirens, lights: the whole nine.”

“One: fuck yes!” Tony said immediately, then held up a second finger, “Two: Bucky’s birthday is next week?”

Sam nodded, but he looked a little uneasy. “Yeah, aren’t you coming? Didn’t Steve tell you?”

“Yeah, of course he did, you and Bucky are his best friends,” Tony lied with a smile, then shrugged a little self-consciously, “it just snuck up on me; I kept thinking it’s later in the month, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Sam grinned, “then I’ll come pick you up next Wednesday? Party’s at seven— _surprise party_ ,” he added emphatically. 

Tony grinned wickedly, and of course agreed at once. “I’ll keep a lid on it,” he promised. “That’ll be a good time for Steve, too, he usually takes a nap in the afternoon and comes back to life around six for dinner.”

“Man, that can’t be easy. How’s the commuting been for him?”

“It’s difficult, but once this bank job’s done he’s said he’ll be working less than ten hours a day again,” Tony said with a little shrug. “I don’t know if that’s true—they’ll probably just give him another big project after the bank—but for now it’s his light at the end of the tunnel. So he’s positive about it.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’s got you at home to support him and all,” Sam noted with a smile. “He’s a lucky guy.”

“It’s mutual,” Tony confessed, if a little shyly. “He works so hard, and he’s really doing everything to make this work. It’s all I could ask for, you know? A husband who won’t back down from a challenge, won’t give up on us without a fight.” 

Tony’s admission was cut short with a loud series of familiar barks, and soon they saw Teddy scramble into the open garage with several firemen chasing after him. Teddy bounced right up to Tony, panting and overjoyed, and he fell down on his bottom behind Tony’s legs, barking with renewed confidence from behind his safe barricade. 

“Oh man,” Tony laughed, admiring his self-satisfied puppy with deep affection. “You giving those big, scary firemen a piece of your mind, Teddy? This is amazing,” he told the two amused firemen who had been chasing the dog around, “he’s going to sleep for hours now, thank you.”

“Anytime, man,” one of them grinned, “he’s a great dog.”

“It’s a shame Ava wasn’t here,” Sam added, missing the station Dalmation even though she’d only been away for two days. “Bucky says she’ll be ready to come home this weekend, if Teddy needs any dog friends. Ava’s great.”

“You want some friends who can run faster than firemen?” Tony asked the dog, who only knew to wriggle his rear madly with delight, caring much more about Tony’s attention than what he was even saying. “Yeah, I thought you might say that. I think that means we’ll be back.”

With a series of final well-wishes for his impending Jeopardy showdown with Dr. Rogers, Tony thanked them for tiring the sheepdog out, then clicked on Teddy’s leash to lead them out into the crisp winter day, walking the short distance to Sarah and Joseph’s house for an evening of merciless entertainment. 

*** 

**Elphaba goes green as a high-flying  
character in this magical musical.**

“What is Wicked!” Tony all but shouted, and Sarah giggled so hard she nearly dropped the tray of hot chocolates and cookies she was carrying into the room where Joseph and Tony had installed themselves for the hour. Joseph reluctantly added $200 to Tony’s score. 

**In ‘West Side Story’, Tony sings  
of his love for this young  
woman he’s recently met.**

“Who is Maria?” they said at the same time, cancelling each other out so nobody got the point. 

“Now that Joe’s not the only one yelling like a madman at the TV, maybe we should get those little buzzers,” Sarah suggested to the unhearing people in the room. 

**Four-letter word for the  
** **central part of the Earth or  
** **the muscles of the torso  
** **that provide stability.**

“Core!” Tony yelled at the same time as Joseph said, “What is the core?” Tony muttered a few colorful words under his breath as Joseph tallied those points on his side of the card. 

**This Western state is last in  
population with around 580,000.**

Tony blinked at the screen “...what is Montana?”

“What is Wyoming?”

“Damnit,” Tony complained as Joseph put down the $1000 on his side again.

**A Liberian warlord known  
** **as General Butt Naked is an  
** **antagonist in this recent musical  
** **about missionaries in Africa.**

“What is the Book of Mormon?” Joseph asked, unhurried and unchallenged. Tony glowered in Joseph’s general direction from his seat on the floor as Joseph won another $800 question. Sarah watched him with an affectionate smile, and she gently combed her fingers through his hair. Tony immediately turned his attention to her. 

“Don’t let his stoic face fool you,” she whispered to him, “I know he looks like a crotchety old man sometimes, but he is loving this.”

“Sure he’s loving it, he’s winning,” Tony complained, and Sarah smiled at him and pressed a cup of hot chocolate into his hands. He breathed it in deeply and couldn’t help but smile, whispering a quiet but genuine thank you to her. 

“He hasn’t had anyone to watch Jeopardy with since… well, since Steve was old enough to go out with his friends.”

From a few feet away in his favorite armchair, Joseph gleefully tallied up another $1000 for his side with his answer of, “What is the Newsies?” 

**Prior to becoming the leader of the  
** **Nation of Islam, he was a Calypso singer.**

“Who is Louis Farrakhan?” Tony said immediately, earning $800. Sarah handed him the small plate of crackle cookies as a secondary reward.

**Charon is the smallest moon  
of this small one-time planet.**

“What is Pluto?” Tony yelled just as Joseph opened his mouth to answer, and again Tony won, this time $1000. 

**The Best Actor Oscar Winner:  
** **Cage  
** **Cruise  
** **Depp**

“Ew,” Tony muttered with a grimace, and Joseph stammered without a real answer. 

When one contestant correctly answered _Who is Nicolas Cage_ , Sarah just stared at the two in disbelief. “You two know all that information, but you don’t remember _Leaving Las Vegas_?”

They both chorused _ohhhh’s_ at the reminder, but said no more as the next question was already being asked. 

**Olympic National Park in this  
state has tracts of rain forest  
and rugged Pacific cliffs.**

“What is Washington?” Joseph asked, earning $100. 

**The first President to appear  
on television.**

“Who is Roosevelt!” Tony said with a big grin, and the sleepy dog picked his head up from his pillow bed at the sound of his name. “Yeah, that’s you,” Tony cooed at him, which was enough to make the dog get up and waddle over to drop next to him for his nap instead. 

**Sanguinary name for the  
seats high up in a stadium.**

“What are nosebleeds?” they both asked at the same time, cancelling each other out again. 

**Who was the first President  
to cross the Atlantic while in office  
on a diplomatic trip to France?**

“Who is Adams?” Joseph asked, at the same time as Tony said, “Who is Jefferson?”

Tony whined when Trebeck said it was Wilson, and he reached for another consolation cookie.

The front door opened and closed softly, but it was enough to have Teddy flail and bounce up from a perfect nap into a furry storm, bolting to the front door to greet whoever was there. “Mom! Dad?” Steve called, then softly grunted when Teddy knocked into his legs in his excitement. “Hey little guy, how you doing? Does this mean everybody’s home?”

“What is Mammoth Cave?” Joseph answered and earned $1000, to Tony’s growing frustration. 

“Come on in, honey,” Sarah called only moments before Steve walked into view. “Your dad is in the lead.”

“Your dad is insanely good,” Tony complained, and Steve couldn’t help but grin. He took a seat next to his mom on the couch, accepting a cooling cup of cocoa and the entire plate of crackle cookies as soon as they were offered to him. 

“What is morbidly!” Tony said quickly, finishing his answer before Joseph had a chance to win the $800.

“How long have they been like this?” Steve stage whispered to his mother, who could only laugh and shake her head. 

“This is the second round, they should be done in a few minutes.”

“What is The Shining?” Tony asked uncertainly at the same time as Joseph said, “What is Psycho?” Tony whined as he lost $800 and Joseph won the same amount.

“Aw, come on, Tony,” Steve teased, “you knew that there was no Norman Bates in The Shining.”

“They threw me off with ‘hotel’,” Tony pouted and reached for another cookie, only to realize the whole plate was in Steve’s lap now. “What, you’re eating all of them?”

“Steve, sweetheart...” Sarah prompted gently when Steve didn’t offer to share the cookies immediately, and Steve obediently (albeit reluctantly) offered the plate to Tony to take a few. 

“Looks like our score is now 4-2, Tony,” Joseph said evenly as the show wrapped up. “Better luck tomorrow.” 

“You're in for a nasty surprise tomorrow,” Tony promised. “Just you wait!”

Joseph laughed and drained his third beer of the evening, getting up from his seat to get another from the fridge. 

“I made chocolate, dear,” Sarah offered, “wouldn't you like one instead?” 

“I'm good, Sarah, thank you,” Joseph called back from the kitchen, humming happily as he puttered around. 

Steve's brows rose in surprise, not remembering the last time his dad had sounded so happy. “He must have really crushed you in that game.” 

“Whose side are you on?” Tony accused without much bite, too distracted by the bottles of beer sitting next to Joseph’s armchair to put much feeling into his complaint. 

“You eat more cookies when you lose, so obviously I'm on your side,” Steve answered matter of factly, polishing off another warm cookie to prove his point. 

“Did you see the shelves Tony installed for us today, dear?” Sarah asked Steve by way of changing the subject. “They are extraordinary.” 

“That reminds me, Tony,” Joseph said as he came back from the kitchen. “How do you feel about children?”

“Joseph!” Sarah cried, euphoric, clearly having the same thought that had turned Steve whiter than a sheet. 

“No, no—now, I know Steve isn’t getting any younger, but I don't mean it like that,” Joseph clarified, and despite the backhanded comment, this time it was Steve who was euphoric with relief while Sarah’s expression turned ashen with disappointment. “There is some interest in starting a shop class for the middle school level, maybe the seventh or eighth grade. Mike had wanted to do it, but he would need help. How would you feel about co-teaching a class with him?”

“Really?” Tony asked in astonishment. “You'd trust me to help teach the kids?” 

“Honey,” Steve warned quietly, “we may have to move back to Boston next year, do you really think it’s a good idea to commit to something when you may not be here to follow through?” 

“If that was to happen, we have plenty of space,” Sarah suggested, “and you don't have plans to move back yet, I'm sure it would take time—tell him Joseph, a semester ends quickly.” 

“No,” Tony said with a small smile, brought back to reality with that simple reminder of their agreement. “Steve is right. Maybe next fall, when his job is more settled, more predictable.” 

Joseph looked between them, his disappointment lingering on Steve for a long, uncomfortable stretch of silence before he conceded the point. “I will let Mike know.”

“Hey baby, I think it’s time we head home,” Tony told Steve with a smile, reaching to give his knee a pat and to steal the last cookie. “It’s time for dinner.”

Steve frowned at the loss of the last cookie, but he followed Tony’s lead and got up to his feet. Sarah, too, got up from the couch to say goodbye to them, visibly struggling against her instinct to invite them to stay longer. Tony gave the cookie to Steve as a reward for getting up and scooped Teddy up in his free arms, pressing a little kiss against the top of the drowsy puppy’s head. 

“Thank you for ...absolutely destroying me, again,” Tony smirked, and Joseph couldn’t help a smile. “Thank you, Sarah: it’s easier to lose with cookies and hot chocolate.”

“Anytime, darling,” Sarah said with a big smile, wrapping him up in a hug as much as she could with Teddy in Tony’s arms, and she kissed his cheek before letting him go. “We will see you tomorrow again, won't we?” 

“Of course: round seven!” Tony grinned, “I've got a project going on in Mike’s workshop, I'll be there tomorrow—come join me, if you have time? I think Jackie will be there in the morning, too.” 

“I will see what I can do,” Sarah answered brightly, already looking excited. 

Joseph walked over to see them off by the door with Sarah, watching them walk to Steve’s car from the doorway. “Thank you again for your work in the closet, Tony. It is exceptional craftsmanship.”

“My pleasure!” He called back with a smile, and both of them waved good night before climbing into the car. 

Steve started up the car without a word or even a glance at Tony. They sat in silence for a long time, almost the whole ride home, until Tony finally had enough. 

“How was your day?” 

“Exhausting,” Steve complained with a sigh, “I’m working ten to twelve hour days and you're the one everybody loves.” 

“I,” Tony started to say, then frowned at the thought. “You could let people in more, you know. People love you, Steve; they wouldn't care about me if they didn't already care about you.” 

“You really think mom and dad are ever going to be okay with Peggy again?” Steve almost yelled, and Tony shrank a little in his seat. “Especially not after how they love you. Peggy can't play dad's favorite game, she can't build them a new closet, and they're going to hold her first rejection of me against her forever. I can't… I don't know what to do now, you're too… too…” 

“Too much, yeah, thanks. I've been made aware,” Tony muttered. “Just… leave that to me? Besides,” he added quietly, looking down at Teddy sleeping in his lap. “She can give you children. Your parents would forgive anything for grandchildren.” 

“No, Tony, you're not too much. You're too good,” Steve corrected quietly. He pulled up to their driveway and parked the car, but he made no move to get up yet. “You're not real. How could you be? I don't think I even care what's real anymore, but… look, the town won't be the same once you leave. I won't be the same.”

“I've done nothing that you couldn't do,” Tony promised. “Except maybe working on the fire truck this morning, that was—that, that was negligible. But, I mean, all I'm doing is spending time with people. You just have to… try?” 

Steve shook his head, and without another word he wrenched the car door open and got out. Tony hurried to follow, putting Teddy down to trundle along behind them while he hurried to catch up with Steve. 

“It's going to be okay, Steve. Trust me,” Tony promised, “you're tired tonight, it's been a long week. Let's just… eat and go to bed?” 

“Like that!” Steve huffed, but he was hanging up his coat in the closet and accepting Tony's jacket to hang up, too. “Why are you so reasonable?” 

“You know,” Tony said slowly after some silence, “I've never been accused of such a thing before in my life.” 

That at least made Steve smile a little, and Tony reached to rub his arm gently. “Come on, you haven't even slept in a bed all this time,” Tony added gently. “Why don't we switch tonight, and I'll take the couch?” 

Steve’d lips twisted in a wry expression, but the thought of sleeping in a bed again seemed too irresistible to decline immediately. 

“You're trying to be the bigger man here, and I get it,” Tony commented quietly, “but it's also kinda true: you're bigger, and older by like, nearly a decade. I think you need a mattress more than I do.” 

“If you're going to call me old, I'm not going to care about your comfort,” Steve told him with an exaggerated sniff. “Deal.”

*** 

When his alarm rang the next morning, Steve woke with a sudden start and a clawing sense of indecency. His heart was pounding and his body inflamed, red, hot, and sensitive. He searched the immediate space around him in wide-eyed horror—if he had slipped, if he had lost his head and invited Tony into his bed, what would Peggy think of him? 

Relieved to find himself alone in the room, he allowed himself to slip back under the covers and relax. Those soft lips; those passionate, brown eyes; that confident, calloused hand wrapped around his straining cock. The dark head sliding down his body, swallowing his cock down in one smooth, impossible move; he could feel that throat taut and gagging around him even now, that tongue caressing his length, spit pooling and dribbling down his balls, pulled up tight and hot against his body. And when that head turned up and brown eyes locked on his, there was no mistaking them for Peggy’s. 

It was Tony’s hair his fingers had gripped in his desperate fantasy, Tony’s eyes he couldn’t look away from, and it was Tony’s eager mouth he dreamt of: his shameless, selfless desire to please, his blunt, practical nails scratching his thighs and spreading them wide apart, opening Steve’s body up for every conceivable sin and adding a painful stretch to the endless pleasure of Tony’s warm, wet mouth. 

With his eyes closed he dared to indulge in the visceral memory of his dream, fisting his cock in a poor imitation of the unreal heat and pressure of Tony’s throat. What his sleep addled mind had mistaken for Tony’s pooling spit was his own leaking precum, and he dragged his hand through it, sweeping up the worst of it in his palm to ease his own merciless pace. But it wasn't enough, not fast enough, not tight enough; he stilled his fist instead and dug his heels into the mattress for purchase, thrusting into his own hand with a vengeance. He wrapped his free hand around the head of his cock, pinching the foreskin between his fingers enough to hurt and letting it pull from his flesh every time his hips pulled back, then rubbing the slippery wet skin firmly against the glans of his cockhead with every upward thrust. 

When he came, when it was finally enough to push him over the edge, it was with Tony’s name on his lips, not Peggy's. 

***

Sleep that night had been a tumultuous affair. Nothing smelled right, the pillow worst of all; Tony couldn't remember any of his dreams by morning, but one of the quilts had been thrown at the bookcase across the room, and somehow he had turned fully on the couch so that his head and feet having swapped positions, all without falling off the narrow cushions. Slowly he pushed himself up to sit, and knowing the bookcase was currently in a position to give him privacy on the loft, he pulled the pillow into his lap and pressed his face into it to breathe in that spicy, reviving scent still clinging to it from a long week of use.

With his eyes closed he dared to dream of a morning where Steve had still been laying in bed beside him that morning in Boston, and maybe he would have smiled at him like he was glad it was Tony he woke up beside. Anything but the reminder of how Steve had regretted it all enough to flee in the middle of the night. Maybe, if he had given them a chance, they could have gone out to breakfast; maybe they could have stayed in bed and enjoyed each other longer.

Maybe Tony could have been enough for once, someone to imagine a future with instead of as a reminder of past misfortunes. If only she hadn't left him; if only she hadn't felt the need to retire; if only she hadn't broken her ankle; if only she hadn't been playing with her son that day; if only she had never had a child at all, maybe then Howard would have been a happier man. 

So he smelled the pillow with a fierce indulgence, and he dreamt of the morning when someone would choose him, when he would be someone’s world. It was all a fantasy, but in that quiet moment, fantasy felt as tangible as reality. 

***

Eventually Tony gave in and climbed downstairs to get the day started. By recent habit, he wandered through the kitchen first to see whether Steve had remembered his lunch and his coffee. Along the way he saw that Steve had not only taken Teddy out for a walk before he left, but he had given him breakfast as well. So when the dog found Tony moments later, he only harassed Tony for affection. With no end to the belly rubs in sight, Tony picked up the wriggling puppy and got himself a glass of water on the way to the bedroom, thinking he could get quick, restful nap in before the day had to begin in earnest. 

But the moment he saw the bed again, his heart sank. Steve had changed all the bedsheets. Tony stood and stared in mute disbelief. Was he so bad that Steve couldn't bear to sleep one night in the sheets Tony had slept in? 

Unwilling to stay in the house any more than he had to, Tony dressed in a hurry, called Teddy to him, and made his way to Jackie and Mike’s place to lose himself in the work that had to be done. 

Tuesday passed easily after that. Jackie and Sarah spent the morning baking, spending all their downtime between batches in the workshop with Tony, leaving plates of cakes, breads, and cinnamon rolls in places he might see them. Sarah had a short shift at the hospital that afternoon and left before noon, and Jackie had a several grooming appointments at the clinic to get to as well. Tony worked until the last possible minute before he had to run to make it to Jeopardy, where he was soundly crushed again. Vindictively, he ate all the cookies Sarah brought out that day, but in the end it made no difference because Steve never came by to join them. 

***

“You know what I hate the most about your fucked up situation?” Natasha said in the silence of Steve's office the next day. She didn't wait for Steve to acknowledge her question before elaborating. “You've been here since what, three? Fourteen hours later you look and smell like shit, but you're probably doing some of the best work I've seen.” 

“Why are you here?” Steve snapped at her, hangry and sleep deprived, but Natasha didn’t care. Calm as ever, and she simply held up their lunch bags: hers from the deli around the corner, and Steve's from home. “I'm not hungry.”

“Steve, normal people are going home for the day. You haven't even had lunch yet,” she recapped for him slowly. “You need to eat.” 

“I need to finish this, Nat,” he argued. “It's almost done.” 

“Look—here,” she talked over him, choosing to ignore his sleepless irrationality until she opened the Tupperware and saw the pasta inside. “That’s homemade ravioli, isn't it? Want to swi—” she paused and lifted the Tupperware out of the bag to dig out a note that had gotten crumpled at the bottom. “Bucky 30th today, 7pm?”

Steve startled at his drafting table so suddenly he nearly overbalanced and tumbled off his stool, but he managed to hang on. “What day is it?”

“December 19th.” 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Steve muttered and scrambled to pack up. “I gotta go—put that in the fridge for me, would you? We’ll do lunch tomorrow.”

He didn't stick around to hear her answer, dashing out of his office instead with his briefcase half shut and his jacket flapping behind him. He ran to his car and threw everything into the backseat, and somewhere between praying to and cursing out the inevitable five o'clock traffic, he realized his car was not starting. 

“No, not now,” he begged, twisting the key in the ignition over and over again in vain, until he finally conceded his failure. He reached back for the case in his backseat then, dug out his phone, and called his third speed dial. 

“Hey, Nat? Are you busy today? I ...need a favor.”

***

“My birthday?” Tony echoed with a little laugh, savoring a sip of his bourbon before he even tried to answer the question. 

Christine, a relatively local friend of Bucky’s from university, had cornered Tony on the couches to answer all sorts of questions about his and Steve’s relationship. “Bucky had this gorgeous painting in his apartment all through grad school, he said it was a birthday present from Steve, and that he made everyone art for their birthdays. Yours must have been… incredible.”

Tony laughed and shook his head. “So since we met, I've only had one birthday. And Steve tried, he just… it was the dumbest and—” 

The doorbell rang, and like everyone else, Tony quieted down and looked up in the direction of the door. There was only one person who was unaccounted for, and at this point, nobody bothered hiding their curiosity anymore. 

Bucky went to open the door, and sure enough, it was Steve on the other side, half awake but freshly showered. 

“Happy birthday, Buck,” he said quietly, a little anxious. “I ...hope I'm not too late. This is my friend from work, Natasha, Natasha Romanov.”

Bucky eyed them both critically, and he stood there in the doorway for a long time before deciding to step back and let them in. “Get in.” 

The silence was oppressive, and no one seemed concerned enough about staring at Steve and Natasha as they walked into the house. Tony glanced at the small crowd that might as well have fallen under some rotten spell, and finally had enough. He got up from his comfortable corner in the den and made his way right up to Steve, stretching to give him a peck on the lips in greeting. 

Worried and glad to see him, Tony took Steve's hands gently in his own, and when he spoke, he intentionally spoke loudly enough to be heard by most people around them. “I was getting worried, baby, is everything alright?”

“My car wouldn't start,” Steve told him, in a somewhat lowered voice. “Nat drove me all the way from work.”

“Hell, look at you, you shouldn't be driving anyway,” Tony murmured, getting an arm around Steve’s waist to hold him close. Steve didn't have the energy to fight it even if he had wanted to. “Thanks, Nat,” Tony said with a warm smile, “I owe you one.” 

“You bet you do,” she answered quietly, then walked away from them without another look. 

Tony frowned, glanced at Bucky, then Sam, then shrugged it off and turned his attention back to Steve. “You're just in time to defend your honor, baby: I was about to tell Bucky’s friend about how you got so excited about my birthday that you sabotaged yourself.” 

Steve couldn't help but snort at the absurdity of such a story—especially since he didn't even know when Tony’s birthday was—and then just whined into Tony's hair. “Can't you tell a nicer story?” 

“Just because you're ridiculous doesn't mean it's not nice,” Tony reasoned, and with no further delay he started towing Steve along with him to the couches. If the rest of the room quietly shuffled along after them, neither Tony nor Steve made like they noticed. 

Tony dropped into the couch and dragged Steve down after him, and it really took no effort to wrangle Steve into his arms in a half snuggle, half nap, letting Steve rest his head Tony's shoulder and close his his eyes to rest a little after his long day. 

“We have a small group of close friends in Boston,” Tony started to tell Christine (and pretty much the other dozen people present to celebrate Bucky), “but we don't always do the same things together. And I think Steve was trying to find out from various people what things I'd enjoyed that year, and—I mean, it was damn sweet, but in the execution…” 

Again Steve whined at the implication that he'd done something embarrassing, but Tony combed his fingers through Steve's clean, wet hair in soothing strokes, quieting him effortlessly. “So one morning maybe... four months before my birthday? I wake up to this ridiculous email chain. It starts, no joke: ‘Hi April! Do you recall where you tried’—and that was in quotations, you brat—‘where you _tried_ to teach Tony how to fish? I wanted to go down and take some pictures for him, he really loved that park.’ Then, sent maybe two minutes later: ‘Shit I didn't realize I sent that to the whole group… HI TONY.’” 

Steve bit his lip in his effort not to laugh, and slapped both hands over his face to hide his obvious embarrassment. But the laughter around him was kind and affectionate, and Tony had his arm protectively around him, still stroking his hair, still chuckling against the crown of his head. The conversation flowed around him, warm and comforting, and for the first time in a long time, everything felt better. 

***

Tony, Steve, and Natasha were some of the first people to bow out of the party. Steve was already half asleep on his feet, and he still had an early morning the next day. They packed him up in the backseat and Tony followed him into the back in case he fell asleep. From there he directed Natasha to the yellow house on the other side of town. Besides Tony's directions, they drove in silence. 

“Just give me a minute,” Tony said when they walked into the house. “Let me get him to bed, and I'll get the loft ready for you, just—five minutes, tops.” 

It took more lifting than he expected, but eventually Tony got Steve horizontal on the bed. The sight of Steve passed out from exhaustion like that made Tony's heart ache. With gentle hands he took Steve's shoes and socks off his feet, then he tucked Steve under one of the quilts to be comfortable while he got new linens for the couch upstairs.

“Here,” he said quietly to announce himself when he came back to the living room where Teddy had found Natasha. “I'm afraid it's just a couch—it's firm and pretty big, I hope you'll be comfortable.” 

“I'll be fine,” she said tersely, and she stood in the doorway while Tony replaced the bedsheets on the couch for her and put a new pillow down for her. 

“Thermostat is to your left, do whatever you want with it,” he said finally when he'd finished up, and he walked past her down the stairs. “Bathroom is under the stairs, I'll put things out for you. Good night.” 

She didn't say anything, and Tony couldn't be bothered to fake a nice host much longer, so he dug out an unopened set of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and a set of towels for her in the bathroom before calling it quits and going back to bed. 

Steve had curled up under the quilt and he was snoring softly, a sight that just warmed Tony from some questionable place deep inside that he didn't want to acknowledge. He walked around to Steve's side of the bed, and item by item helped him get undressed. First his wristwatch, which he sat down on the bedside table. Then, with a little push to roll him flat on his back to unbutton his dress shirt, carefully peeling it off Steve's arms and shoulders to let him sleep more comfortably in his undershirt. Lastly he undid Steve's belt buckle, which he slowly pulled out through the loops of his jeans. He rolled the belt up and sat it next to his watch on the bedside table, and then carried the shirt to the closet to hang up. 

To avoid offending Steve, or otherwise take advantage of his lack of consciousness, Tony pulled out a well-loved plaid shirt from Steve's side of the closet to sleep in, which did more to cover his upper body and his legs than his boxer briefs ever could. And when he finally crawled under the covers to sleep, he dropped off so quickly that he couldn't remember being nervous, blissfully unaware and unbothered by where precisely his body pressed against Steve's (and where it didn't). 

***

“Tony?” 

Tony whined and turned away from the voice, stubbornly trying to pull away from the big palm shaking his shoulder. 

“Tony, wake up,” Steve said a little louder, “I’m sorry, but Nat’s sick, she can’t go to work today. I need you to come with me to Boston.”

“Why can’t _you_ drive?” Tony complained, trying to shove Steve off again. “Go away.”

“If we take Natasha’s car to Boston, you can take my car to the mechanic and drive it home, and I’ll drive Natasha’s car home,” Steve explained patiently. 

Tony frowned and finally gave in, shoving himself up to sit in bed. “Oh, shut up, I’m a fucking mechanic. Just… go get my keys, go get Mike’s toolbox from the workshop, then come pick me up. It’s a blue metal box,” he added when he saw Steve walk off to do what he was told. Then, peevishly, he yelled after him: “And get me some coffee!” 

Steve, who had been on his way out the door to get the toolbox, muttered a few choice words under his breath and went back to the kitchen to get the coffee pot started before he hurried out. 

Satisfied, Tony dragged himself out of bed and washed his face with cold water to try to wake up better. It didn’t really work, but he was aware enough to pull some nicer jeans on and two different sweaters: one frumpy and good for digging in under the hood, the other infinitely nicer made entirely of wool that once had a name and happily roamed the South Island. He packed his toiletries and the nicer sweater away with his wallet, and he was only pouring himself a cup of coffee when he saw the headlights of Natasha’s car reappear in the drive-way. Juggling his jacket, his bag, and his coffee, Tony hurried out the door. 

“Are you sure that’s going to be enough?” Steve asked and hooked a thumb in the direction of the toolbox sitting in the footwell of the backseat. “It’s an old car, it might give you trouble.”

“I know you haven’t seen what I can do, but I’m trying not to feel personally offended here,” Tony grumbled into his coffee. “It’s a 66 Mustang, it’s a piece of cake.”

“Oh, my apologies. I didn’t know I was in the presence of a genius,” Steve replied dryly with a roll of his eyes. 

“Evidently not.”

*** 

Steve sat in his desk and stared at the clock on the wall with staggering impatience. No earlier than 10am, he had decided, no earlier than that, but at 10am he would take his proposal up to Mosby’s office and—and—and… well, he wasn’t sure what, but he was going to try. He checked over his suit a dozen times, re-did his tie ten times more, and having nothing else to fix, went over to criticize the small-scale model of his proposal instead, doing his best to find any possible flaw in the design. It was meant to be a multi-purpose high-rise, a self-contained, high-efficiency building for Mosby & Associates to contribute as pioneering case for low-income housing. How the hell he was going to sell the most successful architectural firm in New England on such a concept was still beyond him, but… he was going to try. 

When the clock struck 10, Steve picked up the portfolio and marched right out to the elevators, determined not to give himself any opportunities for self-doubt. He rode the elevator all the way to the top floor, where the elevator doors opened to reveal a sprawling waiting area with only one desk where Mosby’s secretary was comfortably stationed. 

“Good morning,” he said with a smile, “my name is Steven Rogers, I’m an architect on the third floor. Do you think Mr. Mosby might have a second to see me?”

“Mr. Rogers?” she asked to confirm, then nodded and picked her up phone. “One moment, please.”

Steve took a small step back from her desk and tried not to succumb to any obvious nervous ticks in front of her while he waited. He had almost prepared himself for the inevitable brush-off when she hung up the receiver and looked up at him with a smile. 

“Go right on in,” she said with a smile. 

Steve blinked at her, a little stunned. “Really? I mean, uh, thank you.”

He walked to the door with hurried steps, and when he opened the door, Mosby was already standing in front of his own desk as if waiting for him. “Rogers? You’re in a lot of trouble.”

Steve swallowed back an unexpected panic and tried to remember how to speak. “...I am?”

Mosby walked over to him with sure steps, and to Steve’s shock Mosby reached out to grasp him by the shoulder as if he was an old friend. “Young man, how come I never knew you were married?” 

“Hi, honey!”

Steve turned, wide-eyed, to see Tony comfortably seated in one of Mosby’s luxurious leather guest chairs, wearing what could only be the highest quality cashmere and a handsomely structured leather jacket. With his hair done and his stubble shaved clean, Steve almost couldn’t recognize him—though, ironically, he did look surprisingly familiar, now. 

“Why, if this young man hadn’t wandered up to the wrong floor… Rogers, when one of our people gets married, I want to be the first to know about it—especially when your family and mine now have so much in common! Why, we just found out that Tony’s mom used to teach my youngest daughter Alice classical dancing! I tell you, Rogers, my little girl fell in love with life thanks to the wonderful Maria. Ah, I especially love the story of Maria Darío coming to Harlem.”

Steve, still staring and trying to keep his head above water, found himself so far out of his depth that he had to ask, “Who?”

Mosby stared at him for a silent beat before explaining. “His mother.”

“Oh!” Steve said and tried to laugh it off, “oh, yes, of course, was that ever funny—”

“—you thought that was funny?” Mosby demanded, insulted. 

“—No! Not at first, no, not at all, but now—later, after, after that first incident—” and helplessly he turned to Tony, who was comfortably leaning back against Mosby’s desk as if it were his own, and instead of offering any support, Tony only smirked at him. Steve could feel the blush rising up his neck and his cheeks, and oh god, soon he’d be a beacon of embarrassment—

“—which made me so angry,” Mosby told him emphatically, growling more than speaking. 

“Yes, but,” Steve stammered, trying to find any solid ground in this conversation, “I—I can explain.”

“Shake my hand,” Mosby told him instead, and Steve immediately put the portfolio down to do exactly as he was told. “You brought that man back to life, Rogers. You’re an extraordinary human being.”

“—well, uh, he’s—he’s such a great guy, Tony’s dad!”

Mosby stared at him, clearly confused. “Who—what does Tony’s father have to do with this?” 

Steve’s mouth worked like a guppy, feeling so utterly blindsided he had no idea how to respond. Mosby, thankfully, continued talking. 

“I’m talking about _your dad_ ,” he said in a stern tone, “when you sang that old Irish lullaby to him, Tora Lora Lora, bringing tears to his eyes. Now, it’s good to know there’s more to you than meets the eye. To me, you always seemed like such a strange duck.”

“That’s because he’s a swan, Mr. Mosby,” Tony said with pride as he pushed away from the desk to stand by his husband, gently rubbing Steve’s back in a soothing gesture. “Honey,” he asked Steve then, “why is it that you’ve never invited Mr. Mosby out to the house? Winston, my husband designed the most beautiful little house that you wouldn’t believe, it’s a true gem.”

“Did he now?” Mosby lit up with delight. 

“It’s incredible, and the acoustics of the grand room—with even the little piano I brought with me from my mother’s studio, the whole house comes to life.”

“Why, that must be an incredible sight,” Mosby said with a smile, “how your mother’s music and dance warmed my Alice’s heart, it must truly be outstanding.”

“Why wonder? It would be a pleasure to have you,” Tony suggested with a beaming smile. “Maybe something small, our friends and family, music and dancing—”

“Oh, no,” Mosby interrupted quietly with a small shake of his head, “no, I couldn’t impose.”

“Please, it would be no imposition at all, Winston: it would be a gift to have you and Alice over,” Tony insisted, “I haven’t had the chance to talk to any of my mom’s students in so long, and she hasn’t danced for years. It would mean very much to me. And I think you might just fall in love with the little house Steve made, it really is something special.”

“Well...” Mosby said carefully, “if you are sure...”

“Absolutely,” Steve finally chimed in, “it would be an honor to show you the house, and more still to meet a student from Maria’s school. I have only ever heard about her passion for dance, it would be incredible to—to hear more about how her passion inspired others.”

“Well!” Mosby chuckled, pleased, “my Alice would enjoy that very much. Count us in.”

Steve and Tony left Mosby’s office with the promise to be in touch soon about the details, Tony leading the way since Steve was still walking in a daze. When they got out on the ground floor, Steve must have finally snapped out of it, because he hurried to keep pace with Tony who, for inexplicable reasons, was all but marching towards the parking structure. 

“Tony, that was _fantastic_ , you’re incredible,” Steve told him, breathless, “I can’t believe you went so far out of your way to help me get this promotion!”

Tony smiled but remained silent, shrugging off the praise. 

“No, I mean it, Tony, this is above and beyond—you’re unbelievable! And how interesting, I had no idea your mother had a dancing studio in Harlem—was Darío her maiden name? I can’t wait to meet her, this is—this is just incredible.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Tony admitted with a quiet smile that never quite reached his eyes. “I’ll see you back in Dobbs Mill. Bye, Steve.”


	8. Distinction

When Steve got home that afternoon, only Teddy was home to greet him. He checked his watch against the clock in the kitchen to confirm that it was well past Jeopardy hour, and even though the Mustang was parked in the driveway, Tony was nowhere to be seen. He always came home after Jeopardy. Even Natasha, who should have been home sick in the loft, was suspiciously absent. 

Steve took Teddy out for a walk, taking a long circuit around their neighborhood and even venturing through the far-off cemetery to let dog chase balls off the leash to burn energy and pass the time, and as enjoyable as it turned out to be the house was no more occupied when they returned than when they had left it. 

He texted Sam and Bucky, but neither had seen Tony for hours. When he called Mike, he learned that Tony had been by earlier in the day to return the toolbox; when he called his mother, she said Tony had left their house (this time, victorious!) well over an hour ago. So where could Tony be? Steve paced up and down the living room as he went over their exchange after Mosby’s office for the thousandth time that day, but nothing made sense. He still didn’t understand what he had said to offend Tony; he knew it was _something_ , but when it was this unclear even to Steve, how could it possibly be so bad that Tony wouldn't come home? 

Teddy whined at him and bumped into his leg for attention, unaccustomed to this anxious pacing. Steve glanced down at him with a wry smile, reaching down to rub the dog’s ears and pat his flanks to comfort him. “You don’t know where Tony is, do you? You’d tell me if he fell down a well or something, right?”

The dog only licked Steve's palm in happy relief, probably only glad that this biped wasn’t behaving so strangely anymore. 

Out of options and having no idea what else to do, Steve grabbed his keys and his jacket again and headed out the door in a direction that was almost more familiar to him than his own parents’ house: he jogged down the hill, took one turn down a small, private street, and soon enough he was knocking on Peggy’s front door. 

It didn’t take her long to come to the door, but when Peggy saw him, she startled in the doorway and stared. 

“Steve?”

“Peggy, can we talk?” he asked with a pitiful expression, “Tony and I had this awful ...I don’t even know what to call it, a conversation? Miscommunication? I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t even be here, but I came home from work, and I—”

“No, it’s just,” Peggy interjected, but then she seemed to change her mind and just stepped back from the door to let him in. “Come in, Steve.”

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” he admitted with a sigh, grateful though he was, and he made good on scrubbing his shoes off on the mat before walking into her house. “I just don’t know what I said, and you know me better than anyone, and I wasn’t—I thought I was complimenting him, and now he’s just—he hasn’t come home, and I’m worried and am I that bad, Peggy? I thought I was saying good things, I—”

“—Steve,” Peggy interrupted him again, silencing him immediately. “Tony is here. He’s in the kitchen.”

“He’s here?”

“You bet I am.” 

Steve spun around to face Tony, genuinely shocked to see his husband seated at Peggy’s kitchen table. He looked like the Tony Steve recognized again, with his worn old jeans and some sweater he’d stolen out of Steve’s side of the closet, but his anger was entirely new. 

“What are you doing here?”

“No, what the hell are _you_ doing here?” Tony glowered.

“I was home waiting for my husband so we could have an open conversation about what happened today, but you’ve been missing for hours! Am I the only one who cares whether this marriage works?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“ _Rich?_ ”

“Gentlemen, please,” Peggy walked around Steve to go to Tony’s side, gently resting a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe—maybe wait a little first, so you can discuss this matter more calmly?”

“I’m sorry, excuse me for getting worked up when my _husband is missing_ ,” Steve finished with great emphasis, glaring at Tony as he enunciated each word. “You could have been in an accident or—or taken, or—or—you promised never to see _him_ again and I’m glad you’re here because I was starting to think you had run off to Boston—”

“And if I had, whose fault would that have been?” Tony asked pointedly, and when Steve didn’t manage an answer Tony looked up at Peggy, so thoroughly unimpressed his every word seemed steeped in sarcasm. “Would you like to ask Mister Matrimony here when we last slept together?”

Peggy stared at Tony, wide-eyed, and Steve’s jaw fell open so suddenly Tony could almost hear it unhinging. “You want to tell her?” Tony asked him, and Steve only just managed to stammer his mouth shut in time before Peggy turned to stare at him, likey horrified by the mess she had gotten caught up in. “Tell her, Steve. The truth.”

“Re-really?” Steve whispered, stunned. 

“Once,” Tony told Peggy, “once in I don’t want to tell you how long. And you want to tell her why, Steve?”

Steve looked and felt so uncomfortable his expression was approaching fear. “...me?”

“Because our Mister Rogers here lives with a little… dark… secret.”

If Steve had imagined Peggy horrified before, it was nothing compared to this. “Hey, I—I don’t want to get involved,” she told them both while looking directly at Steve, then finally she walked away, hurrying out of the kitchen. 

“But you are involved,” Tony told her with a sneer and, unwilling to let Peggy escape the conversation so easily, he got up from the table and followed her out to the living room. “How could you not be? Don't you see: you _are_ the secret, Peggy.”

That stopped her dead in her tracks in the middle of her living room, and she slowly turned to look at Tony, and then at Steve, where her eyes lingered. 

Tony followed her into the living room and leaned into the cushioned armrest of her couch for support, rubbing a tired hand over his tired face before he could look at her again. “He’s tried to forget about you, Peggy. And for a time there I really thought we would make it. Everything was so perfect. But then came Maui,” he added with bitter regret in his voice. 

“What happened in Maui?” Peggy wondered, not looking away from Steve. 

“Well… um,” Steve stammered from the doorway into the living room, unable to meet her eyes and sheepishly looking down at his hands. “Tony might as well tell it.”

But Tony shook his head slowly, as if dismayed to revisit the old, painful memory. He took a deep breath to steady himself before speaking. “We went there to celebrate his promotion,” he told her in a subdued voice, “he was so happy then. You should have seen him, he was… like something out of a dream. Maybe I even knew something was wrong, but I… I was so happy in the moment that I couldn’t face the truth. And he was working so hard to try to have fun, to try to please me—he’d chase me into the surf and carry me into the cabana, and we’d drink and dance all night. We never wanted those nights to end—when we were too tired to dance, we’d go to the bar and we’d people watch and make up these stories for everyone, fantastical stories about how they ended up in this bar. And when I tried to cut him off from the cocktails that night before our flight, Steve wanted to impress me with his sobriety by tossing macadamia nuts up into the air to catch them in his mouth,” Tony huffed in a faint show of amusement, shaking his head again. “God, how we laughed and laughed and laughed… until one of those macadamia nuts landed just right and broke his damn tooth. We spent the entire last day of our vacation looking for a dentist who could do an emergency crown. And he was fine with it, but how I ha—I have had enough of hospitals and dentists and emergency rooms for a lifetime, and between the two of us I swear it was worse for me to sit next to that dentist chair, holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up from the gas that they’d given him… he looked so out of it, and I was so scared, I just wanted to take him home, you know? His eyes were glazed over from the drugs and his face was swollen from the cotton sticking out of his mouth. But then he finally blinked his eyes open and they were clearer, and when he finally turned my way he gazed up at me, and he smiled, and he sounded so happy, and as he looked at me, he… he whispered, ‘Peggy?’” 

With sudden energy begotten by heartache Tony pushed away from the couch he’d been leaning against and came to stand only feet away from Steve, staring down at him with contempt. “I came here tonight because I had to find out sure, and now I know: if nobody was home to keep you accountable, this is where you would go.”

There was no chance for Steve to respond before Tony turned and marched out of the house, slamming the door in his wake. 

“—Tony!” Steve called after him, but instead of running after him he gravitated to Peggy, who readily welcomed his embrace. “What are we going to do?”

“Oh, Steve,” she moaned quietly, then after an extended silence in his arms she finally said, “you should go after him.”

He took a deep breath against her hair and nodded slowly, but he said nothing else as he stepped away from her and hurried to the door. He paused in the doorway to look back for her, and his gaze lingered on her, savoring the sight of those passionate brown eyes he had missed for so long, before he tore himself away to walk out after Tony. 

Steve turned down the street and jogged up the road again, and he caught up with Tony right where the uphill climb began. He wrapped his arms around him to sweep Tony into a bear hug with his momentum. 

“You’re a miracle, Tony!” he cried, lifting Tony clear off his feet in his happiness. “I can’t believe you—today has been—did you see her face?” Steve almost laughed just at the memory, finally easing Tony down on his feet. Tony offered him a stiff smile in return. “You’re a genius Tony, I’ll never doubt you again—I really think she’s coming around! Thank you, Tony, thank you so much.”

“Just doing my job,” Tony told him him with a grin and shoved his bare hands in his jean pockets, huddling into his coat as he picked up the pace. 

It was almost no effort for Steve to catch up with him again, practically skipping backwards up the hill in his excitement without a sign of being winded. “But really, Tony, I couldn’t even begin—Maui? The dentist? Did you really come up with all that on the spur of the moment?”

Tony shrugged without looking at him, but little by little, his wry grin was changing into something more sincere. “Yeah.”

“Wow,” Steve breathed, and finally he did laugh. “Tony, you’re a living work of art: you’re the Ernest Hemingway of bullshit!”

That finally seemed to drag a chuckle out of Tony, and Steve wrapped an arm around him again, gleefully spinning Tony around and all but carrying him back to the house, so happy and so demonstrably grateful that Tony closed his eyes, let his greedy heart indulge in Steve’s warmth and his joy as if it was his to share in, too. 

*** 

The house was silent the next morning when Tony woke up, and the world outside seemed dark and inhospitable with its heavy clouds and howling winds. He rolled out of bed reluctantly, struggling to balance upright in his nearly-conscious state. With a back-popping stretch and a yawn that could have raised the dead, he finally managed to shuffle out of the bedroom, barely aware enough to navigate to the kitchen where he might find his morning supply of caffeine. 

He had attached himself to the carafe of lukewarm black coffee, chugging it straight from the pot, when a smirking voice behind him announced his uninvited audience. 

“Nice legs, Stark.” 

The blood ran cold in his body and Tony froze where he stood. Slowly, he lowered the carafe down to the counter and turned to see Natasha watching him from the kitchen nook. Distantly aware of how he was standing there in nothing but last night’s black longsleeves and a pair of striped bikini briefs, he shuffled a few steps to his left to hide behind the island counter. 

“Um,” he mumbled, glancing around the room like a skittish colt. “How—uh, how are you feeling?”

“Better now,” she purred, taking a leisurely sip of her tea and giving him another once-over. “I guess Steve can pull after all.”

Tony blinked at her in disbelief. “Are you objectifying me in my own kitchen?” 

“Would you rather we take it to the bedroom?” 

“You—I, I,” he sputtered haplessly, and it wasn’t until she eyed him more deliberately that he, too, glanced down at himself and noticed his state. “ _No._ Absolutely not. This is—this?” he shuffled even farther behind the counter, lowkey backing away from her until he was almost out of the kitchen. “This isn’t a come on, this is—this is, uh, it happens? You know, in the mornings, it’s nothing personal and, and I—I’m usually alone in the mornings, which—you know, what are you even doing here? Don’t you have to go back to Boston? For that job you supposedly have?” 

“It’s Saturday,” she told him slowly, eyebrow arched suggestively. “We have all day to ourselves.”

“Oh,” Tony said a little breathlessly, “so, uh. Is Steve home?”

“He’s out with Roosevelt,” she said with a smirk, “he didn’t say when he’d be back.”

And as if in answer to Natasha’s statement, the front door opened and shut in quick succession, followed by Steve’s huffing and puffing from the cold, and Teddy’s excited claws clicking across the tiles on his way to the kitchen to find his water and his favorite biped. 

“Fuck,” Tony muttered under his breath even as Teddy yipped in excitement to see him, and for the first time he couldn’t spare the minute to greet his puppy. Instead he sprinted into the pantry, managing to shut the door behind him just in time to hide himself from Steve, who was following Teddy into the kitchen at a fast pace. 

“Come on, Teddy,” Steve called to him as he filled up the dog’s water bowl and put it down for him. But Teddy was, to Natasha’s amusement and Steve’s confusion, drawn to the pantry, where he whimpered and scratched at the door eagerly. “Teddy? You were drinking out of puddles two minutes ago, what’s going on?”

“Maybe he can smell the hams in there?” Natasha offered innocently enough. “Or maybe even a bone? You know what dogs are like.”

Steve frowned, because no matter what they stored in the pantry Teddy had never behaved like that before. Curious, he walked over to the pantry and opened the door to find Tony wearing a sheepish smile and a giant yellow apron that anointed him the ‘World’s Okayest Cook’ over his longsleeves. Teddy ran to him in his frenzied excitement, crying this time when he got the real, loving welcome he was accustomed to getting from his favorite biped.

“Tony?” Steve asked, clearly caught off guard. “What… what are you doing in the pantry?”

“Looking for—for uh,” Tony cleared his throat and quickly glanced around himself at the stacked shelves, then snatched up a giant bag of all-purpose flour. “Flour! I was looking for the flour. I thought I’d make waffles?”

“...that would be great,” Steve answered slowly, “if we weren’t going to my parents’ place for brunch in about two hours?”

“Right,” Tony agreed, then after a brief delay he put the flour back. “Right. Of course, that—that would make sense, Saturday morning brunch. We’re having brunch soon. Soon!” he suddenly said, again, as if thrilled by the idea. “I have to get ready!”

And with that Tony rushed past him out of the pantry. He turned to face them and offered an awkward smile as he backed away from them as casually as he could, Teddy trailing at his feet. But in the end there was nothing for it: there was no way to walk to the bedroom without turning his back to them, so Tony spun on his heels and strode briskly away. 

Steve stared after him, watching Tony go with a far-away, dreamy expression until Natasha cleared her throat and startled him back to the world of the living. He turned to her in question, still unclear on why Tony had been hiding in the pantry to begin with. 

“Don’t look at me,” she warned him, taking another long drink from her tea. “I told you there were hams in the pantry.” 

*** 

“Your dad is a genius,” Tony told Steve with a playful kind of indignation. “Joseph, how did you even know what Common’s real name is?”

“No artform is less deserving,” Joseph told him, then gestured for the pot of jam. “Could you please pass the marmalade?”

“You think that’s unusual?” Steve scoffed with a shake of his head. “Tony, I can’t believe you’ve tied with my dad in Jeopardy. In this town that’ll get you a job with benefits and a 401K.”

“I think your father’s met his match,” Sarah teased gently, but when Joseph gave her a meaningful look she couldn’t help but laugh. “Stop it, Joseph! You’ll worry the children.”

“Pops, what is this,” Steve complained when the mostly-empty pot of marmalade finally reached him. “You finished it?”

“There’s more, sweetheart, I’ll fill it up,” Sarah said quickly and held her hand out for the empty jar, but Tony snatched it out Steve’s hand before she could, and got up himself. 

“I got it,” he told Sarah and gently squeezed her shoulder on his way to the kitchen. 

“What—”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Joseph told his son in a tired voice. 

“But—”

“It’s alright, dear,” Sarah soothed them both, “it’s alright. It’s just two rooms over, it wouldn’t have been a hassle either way.”

“Sarah, why didn’t you bring out the figs? I didn’t know we had any left,” Tony wondered as he came back to the kitchen, putting the pot of blood orange marmalade down for Steve and carrying an unopened Mason jar back to his own seat. “I loved this kind.”

But she looked at him with a bittersweet expression, reaching to rub his back gently as he walked past her seat. “I was saving that for you, sweetheart. I thought you’d like it Christmas morning.” 

Tony beamed at what she said, and he leaned in to kiss her cheek in thanks before taking his seat at the table again. 

“What is that?” Joseph wondered with a little frown of curiosity, and Tony opened it before handing it over to him. 

“It’s incredible,” Tony told him with a big smile, clearly proud of what Sarah had made. “There’s figs, pears, apples—what else?—and the figs are whole and so succulent—you have to try one of them on the soft cheese, try a fig first and then the rest of it jam.”

Sarah smiled at him and gently rubbed Tony’s forearm where she could reach him. “There was also quince, and hazelnuts.”

“Oh god, yes: the hazelnuts,” Tony groaned quietly, and Joseph was already spooning some onto his plate while Tony talked. “Steve, you have to try it—she cooked it in this great red wine, with all these spices—how do you like it?” he asked Joseph, grinning at the look of surprised delight on his face. “It’s out of this world, right?”

“Oh, damn,” Steve mumbled when he finally tried a bite of the jam with some cheese, and Joseph immediately gave him a look. 

“Language.”

“Sorry, pops,” Steve apologized half-heartedly, too busy grabbing another piece of bread to care. “Mom, he’s not kidding, this is delicious.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said with a big smile. “I’ll make you two some more to take home.”

“You should have been there when it was cooking. That smell?” Tony told him with a little shudder, and then almost at the same time he and Sarah started laughing. “We closed all the doors to the kitchen and just soaked in it.”

“We? No: I’m standing at the stove,” she tried to explain, “when out of nowhere, I hear Tony yell, ‘Dutch oven!’ and he starts running around the kitchen, slamming doors!”

“Oh yeah, you’re totally innocent! I’m the lonesome troublemaker,” Tony deadpanned. “I got nothing done that day. I was supposed to help Mike install some shelves in Hazel’s pantry, and what happened? Someone brings out the biscuits, and the cheese, and the butter, and the honey...”

“Hazel got her shelves!” Sarah cut in, “didn’t she?”

Tony made a face in his effort not to grin again, and conceded her point. “Eventually.”

“Speaking of Hazel,” Joseph interrupted delicately, and it was his unusual tone that had Tony paying attention at once. “Although, she’s not the only one—most everyone in town, now,” and he trailed off in an unusual show of insecurity. 

“What’s up?” Tony asked casually, making an effort to seem more curious than concerned. 

“What he is trying to say is that so many people have been coming up to us, now that the word is well and truly out, and asking what they should do—in terms of gifts.” 

“Gifts?” Tony’s smile lit up, but Steve reached for his hand just as quickly to give it a warning squeeze. 

“Now, this is not something we want to force on you by any means,” Joseph clarified, “but what we would like you two to consider is a little reception. Something small for close friends of the family to celebrate.”

“This would be something that—something that I could, I don’t know, set up a register?”

“Certainly,” Sarah beamed, “we can go together!”

“No,” Steve finally interrupted, “no, no way. No gifts.”

“Steven,” Joseph said with a stricter tone, “we are not talking about anything lavish—”

Steve cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Tony. “Sweetheart?”

Tony smiled at him, evidently thrilled by his prospects. “Yes, honeybun?”

“Don’t you think that a reception would be a very bad idea?” he asked rhetorically, his words clipped in his rising annoyance. “I mean—our marriage is in a very ambiguous state right now.”

“And this is why your mother feels, and I absolutely agree, that this might just be what the doctor ordered,” Joseph cut in, “a fresh start. With your family, this time, not alone in some impersonal metropolis.”

“Damnit, pops, why can’t you just lay off? If I want to get married in Boston, I can get married in Boston.”

Joseph’s turned a cold glare at his son, but before he could get a word in Tony spoke. “That’s not what he’s saying, Steve,” he explained gently, “he’s not saying they’re mutually exclusive, or that we were wrong to get married in Boston, just that…. There are people here who love you. People who miss you.”

“That’s true,” Joseph said, a little less tersely, “I did not mean that they are mutually exclusive. But the right thing to do would have been to come here first. You’re our only son, you grew up here, how could you be so selfish—”

“It’s _my life_. If I want to—”

“Enough!” Tony raised his voice over them with a strangled sound of frustration. “What is it with you two? Dr. Rogers—Joseph, with all due respect, it hasn’t been easy for Steve to come back. He won’t say that because he thinks he’s not supposed to, but he was hurt and he needed time, but there is nothing here that doesn’t remind him of that pain, so just—please? Give him time?”

There was a long, awkward stretch of silence after Tony’s sudden outburst, until Joseph finally spoke. 

“You are right, Tony,” he said in slow, careful words. Steve stared in mute disbelief, rarely a witness to his father admitting anyone else was right. “Except, there is one concern I would like to address,” Joseph added, after some consideration, and he glanced at Sarah with a questioning look, which she only seemed to respond to with positive encouragement. “Unless, of course, this makes you uncomfortable, Sarah and I would like for you to consider us your family. It would mean very much to us if you would think of us as mom and dad.”

Steve stared at Joseph, stunned. Who the hell was this sentimental man, and where was his father? “Pops?”

Tony heard him, but he couldn’t understand. He moved his mouth, but no words would come; he swallowed down air, but his chest constricted when it shouldn’t, leaving him breathless. With stilted, uncertain movements, Tony leaned back in his seat and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. Mom and dad were caught in his throat, weighed down and suffocating, and neither Sarah nor Joseph deserved being associated with either. 

But family had never been offered so easily, so unconditionally. His eyes stung, warm and wet with unshed tears, and he quickly looked away, ducking his head down to casually rub his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“Tony?” Sarah asked in a gentle voice, “darling, if it makes you uncomfortable you will not hurt our feelings.”

“No,” he hurried to say past the lump in his throat, and he said it again and again until finally he could swallow past the gravel and express himself in more than one syllable at a time. Not without effort he managed to look up and meet Joseph’s eyes, and when he spoke it was softly, reverently, and with utmost sincerity. “It would be an honor,” he admitted, and then, ever so cautiously, said, “dad.”

*** 

They did not stay with Sarah and Joseph long after that. Steve quickly excused them and all but carried Tony out to the car. Several minutes of strained silence passed until Steve could finally devote himself to anything but wringing the steering wheel and grinding his teeth.

“How could you agree to the reception?” he shouted at Tony in the privacy of the car, “how selfish could you be? What gifts do you so desperately need that you’re willing to lie to my whole extended family?”

“Wow, Steve,” Tony rolled his eyes and did his best not to outright grin. “Tell us how you really feel.”

“I’m begging you here, Tony: Please stop it,” Steve talked over him, ignoring Tony’s snide humor. He shifted in his seat to pull his phone out of his pocket, and he pushed it on Tony urgently. “Call them right now and tell them you’ve changed your mind. I don’t—my aunts and uncles, Tony, my cousins, my _grandfather_ , they—I’m not doing this to them, Tony, I’m not going to get their hopes up about a marriage that isn’t real.”

Tony accepted the phone and keyed in the passcode, but he still shrugged off what Steve was saying. “Calm down, Rogers, they’ll understand. With the divorce rate these days—”

“I’m not the divorcing type, Tony!”

“You realize the alternative is historically tied to spousal abuse or neglect, right?” Tony replied far too casually for it to be nonchalance, but he was still busy scrolling through Steve’s contacts and then punching in a message to someone. 

“—you know that’s not what I meant,” Steve said in a tired voice, pulling the car around in their circular driveway. “Please. I’ll give you whatever you want, just—don’t make my family complicit to this ...charade.”

“Babe, I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed,” Tony eventually answered and handed back Steve’s phone. “Everybody already knows you want what’s in these pants.”

Steve eyed with him contempt, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He snatched the phone out of Tony’s hand and got out of the car without another look at him, slamming the door behind him. 

His smirk faded the moment Steve’s back was turned, and Tony watched him go from the silence of the car. Through the expansive windows of the house, he saw Steve walk past the hallway closet without hanging up his jacket and instead pick up Teddy’s leash from a hook on the wall. It didn’t take a genius to see what he was about to do. 

If Steve wasn’t going to be reasonable, Tony had no interest in sticking around for _worse_. He slid across into the driver’s seat, and with no destination in mind, he started up the engine.

*** 

With Teddy at his side, Steve walked aimlessly through the town. First they simply walked down to the church and around the ice rink where children were whooping and playing, took a swing by the Eatery for a coffee to go, until they reached the city park where he and Teddy settled into the private jogging trail. He let Teddy off the leash then and pulled a little rubber ball out of his coat pocket to throw for him; he threw the ball and sipped his coffee until Teddy came back, eagerly dropping it at Steve’s feet for another round, but when Teddy returned the second time, the dog seemed less than pleased. He came to stand beside Steve with uncharacteristic calm, looking more serious and alert than Steve ever imagined the young dog could manage. 

It wasn’t long before he, too, heard the footfalls that had caught Teddy’s attention, and he turned to face whoever was approaching them. 

“Peggy?” 

As she came jogging around the bend, Peggy visibly startled at the dark figure in the middle of the park. It took her a moment to recognize him in the waning light, but then she walked up to him with a big smile, fingers on her pulse to quickly make note of how she had been doing. 

“Steve, hi,” she greeted him, only a little out of breath from her run, and she leaned up to kiss his cheek hello. “How are you? How was brunch this morning?”

“Long,” Steve answered honestly with a little self-deprecating snort. “We’re going to host a reception now on Christmas Eve. A wedding reception.”

“That’s in four days,” Peggy pointed out, looking as bewildered as Steve felt. “How?”

“Mom says it won’t be too big,” Steve said with a little shrug, and they started walking together down the path with Teddy between them. “Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s been talking about this with family before ever mentioning it to Tony or to me.”

“Your mother always was a wily one,” she grinned, playfully nudging Steve with her elbow. “Come on, Steve, chin up.”

“I’m really trying, Peggy,” he said quietly, “but it’s still sometimes difficult to know where I stand with him. Like earlier today,” but he cut himself off abruptly then with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, you don’t deserve this.”

“Whatever else we are or are not, we will always be friends, and I’m always here if you would like to talk,” she reminded him kindly. Then, a little hesitantly and in a lower voice, she quietly went on to ask, “Steve? Could I ask you something about your, your relationship with Tony?”

“Fire away.”

“When you married Tony,” she said, her voice still lowered, “was it maybe… just in a small way to get back at me? To show me what a wonderful husband you would have been?”

“I—I,” Steve struggled at first to say, then had to laugh at himself. “God, this is so embarrassing. I was still on the rebound when I first met Tony. So when I met him, yes. It—it was. But the marriage? Maybe a little bit. I… even I know I don’t make my best decisions when I’m ...infatuated.”

Together they walked for another mile, talking about the time that had passed, about their lives and their work, but mostly they talked about Steve and Tony, especially in these past few days. It wasn’t long before they were walking up to Peggy’s front door, awkwardly caught between a mutually cherished conversation and the knowledge of where it could lead. 

“Well, thank you for letting me talk,” Steve said softly, bowing his head just enough so that he could better smell her hair without standing too close. 

“Steve, I’m always here for you. And I can’t help but feel that much of this is my fault,” she confessed in a lowered voice, speaking quietly enough to encourage, if not require, Steve to lean in closer. He reared up at what she said though, clearly about to protest her culpability, but she shook her head and spoke over him. “No, Steve: if I hadn’t misjudged you so, if I hadn’t turned you down. It’s… it’s a very lonely life, Steve, without you. The men I date—”

“You date?”

“—it never works out! They’re jerks, they make up these stories—they’ll tell you anything to get you into bed,” she complained, then seemed to remember her company and smiled up at him, reaching to gently cup his cheek. “They’re not like you, Steve. They don’t make men like you anymore. I regret… I regret not recognizing what I had in you when I had the chance.” 

“Oh, Peggy,” he sighed softly, and he held his arms out just enough to signal the invitation of a hug. Peggy eagerly accepted, all but falling into his embrace, trusting Steve to easily take her weight. He held her close, selfishly pressing her warm body against his own and nuzzling into the crook of her neck, breathing her in like a starved man. 

“Steve, my darling?” she whispered then, her lips so close to his ear that they brushed against his skin and made him shiver. “Would you like to come in? For tea?”

“Peggy, I—”

*** 

When Steve eventually left Peggy’s house, the last place he wanted to go was home. He couldn’t stomach the yellow house; he couldn’t face Tony. Teddy whined at him, eager to do precisely what Steve couldn’t, but a few well-timed tugs on the lead had the dog turning his way and walking away from the hill and beside Steve again. 

They walked aimlessly for a long time, unbothered and undeterred by the dropping temperatures of the early evening. Nearly an hour had passed before Steve found himself on familiar ground again. For the second time that week, he raised his hand and hesitantly knocked on Bucky’s door. 

But it wasn't Bucky, or Jackie, or Mike, or even Sam who opened the door: it was Natasha. 

They stared at each for a long time in silence, until Steve simply asked, “Not totally useless to you then?” 

“Adequate,” she agreed and stepped back to let him and Teddy in. 

“I'll tell him you said that.” 

“I've talked to him more in the past day than you have in six months,” she reminded him, and somehow that alone left Steve speechless. “Who's a good boy?” she cooed then at the dog, “that's you! You don't even have balls but look at you, what a good boy!” 

“Do not equate human gender norms with canine biology!” Bucky yelled from somewhere deep in the house, and Teddy took off to find him, recognizing Bucky’s voice so easily. “It's your turn!” 

“Coming, coming,” she called back and Steve hung back to follow her into the house rather than lead. She took them straight to the kitchen where Sam and Bucky were still seated at the kitchen table around a board game Steve couldn’t recognize, clearly in the middle of something. Teddy was stretched out at Bucky’s feet, clearly overdue for his evening nap.

She scratched her nails across Bucky’s neck as she passed him on the way to her seat, then pulled him in for a chaste kiss by his shirt collar. “If you'd been as concerned with my turn this morning, today would have been a better day.” 

“TMI!” Sam complained, then he glanced up at Steve, who was still standing quietly in the kitchen. “Hey, what’s up, man?”

Bucky eyed him critically, then went back to his cards. “What do you want?”

“I… I don’t really know,” Steve admitted, and he tried not to sound too defensive about it, tried to sound less bothered, but he couldn’t help it. He crossed his arms and leaned his hip into the kitchen counter, and he shrugged a little. “I was just walking, trying to clear my head—”

“Did you come back here to try to get Peggy back?” Bucky interrupted him, and Steve looked up at him in sudden panic. 

“Wh—what? Why wo—?” 

“Tasha saw Tony this morning, not a scratch on him,” was all Bucky said to explain himself. It didn’t take Steve long to figure out what Bucky was suggesting — if Tony wasn’t bruised from sex, there must be something wrong. 

“It’s been difficult,” Steve tried to explain, “for both of us.”

Sam snorted and shook his head, “Really? Cause last time Tony was by the station, he only had good things to say about you.”

“And he insisted the birthday present was your idea, not that I believed him,” Bucky added, and sure enough, Steve had no idea what Bucky was talking about. It was Natasha who took mercy on him and pointed to a cushioned cubby that had been installed in the corner of the kitchen, tucked up high against the ceiling with a long series of tasteful shelves and ledges leading to it. As a whole, the perches Tony had designed became sweeping artwork that looked more like a meditative piece inspired by ocean waves than functional cat shelves. Steve shook his head in suppressed awe. 

“He made that?”

“You should see the set-up he made for Ava,” Sam beamed, “she’s sleeping better than ever.”

Steve blinked at him, too surprised to be shy about it. “Ava? She—how old is she now, seventeen?” 

“Sixteen in April, man, don’t age our girl,” Sam warned him, though it was more teasing than defensive. “He built this shelf for her bowls so she could stand and eat more easily, and her bed has a giant heating pad under it and this foam top for her joints—hell, if I could fit in there with her, we’d be sharing it.”

“Does he...” Steve glanced down at the kitchen tiles and scuffed his shoes a little at an odd crack in the grout, clearing his throat quietly before he tried again. “Does he come by the station often?”

“He usually comes by for lunch: he and Sharlene have an ongoing darts tournament—and he’s not too bad!” Sam added with a grin. “Most wins by Christmas Eve gets a gift of his or her choice, courtesy of the station.”

“Is it true you’re paying for everything?” Bucky asked Steve then, apropos of nothing. 

“I—no,” Steve shook his head, “he exaggerates. He has—he’s a great mechanic, he doesn’t make bad money.”

Bucky eyed him again, thoughtfully. “He said you insist.”

“But not everything, Bucky,” Steve told him in a tone that suggested Bucky shouldn’t believe everything he hears. “The rent, mortgage, bills, gas—sure, yeah, but… when the car breaks down, he gets it done himself for free. You remember how much they would charge me for a ‘vintage’? Thousands of dollars. There’s nothing he can’t fix,” Steve shrugged his shoulders, unable to resist a smile. “There’s really nothing he can’t do. And if he chose to go back to school, he’d change the world. But that… that’s not a money question, that’s a Tony question. So no, the answer to your question is no: he’s not some freeloading charity case. He’s worth it.”

Natasha leaned back in her seat as she watched him, a small frown of concentration on her face. But Sam laughed, and across from him even Bucky cracked a grin. 

“Man, if you could see yourself,” Sam chuckled. “—Hey, is it really true you own a Mets cap?”

Steve’s far-away smile immediately turned into a severe frown, and he was clearly less than flattered by the suggestion. “I might ...lease a Mets cap, when I must.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Not this again,” he sighed, already sounding tired. “He’s an idiot, Sam; it’s impossible.”

“At least he didn’t marry a Yankees fan,” Sam pointed out. “Hell, it could have been worse: could have been the Giants.”

Bucky shrugged. “Could’ve been worse than that: could’ve been the Lakers.”

“Could you not?” Steve interrupted with a frown, “so what if he had been? You wouldn’t talk to him?”

“What are you doing here?” Natasha cut in, clearly unbothered by the irony. “Did you have another fight?”

“You what?” Bucky looked up at that, frowning hard at Steve. “What did you do?”

“—why do you think it’s my fault?” Steve snapped, his jaw set in his sudden anger. 

Bucky got up from the table then, calmly, and he walked over to Steve until they were only inches apart, but when he finally answered Steve’s question, he did so very quietly. “Because when Tony talks about you, you’re not his ‘best option,’ Steve. You’re his goddamn dream come true. So,” Bucky repeated himself more slowly, “I’ll ask you again: what did you do?” 

Steve was silent for a long time after Bucky’s question, until he finally managed to ask, “He said that?” 

“His words,” Bucky promised, “and he’s fighting for it, Steve. I don't doubt him.”

Steve had to look away then, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor again for want of something to do. “My parents want to host a reception for us,” he told them eventually, “I’m… I yelled at Tony, afterwards. In the car. I know it wasn’t his idea, but he—I wanted to talk about it, but he just ignored me and told them yes. Just like that—like it was his decision to make.”

“And what if he wanted it as much as you don’t want it?”

“But it’s _my_ family, Buck. It’s _my_ hometown!”

“Not anymore it isn’t,” Sam told him coolly from the table. He looked like he was about to give Steve another piece of his mind when Bucky held up a hand to stop him. 

“Go home,” Bucky told Steve instead. “Apologize for yelling, then talk to him. You’re not a coward, Steve. Quit acting like one.”

***

As he walked up to the yellow house, Steve saw Tony through the large windows to the living room. He was cramped into the corner of the sofa with a large basket of clean laundry next to him and several piles of various sizes on the couch cushions beside him. The TV was on in the background with some brightly colored, improbable romcom, probably the embarrassing but proper industry dues of the next Hollywood star, and as Steve managed to balance the bags he was carrying in one hand and Teddy’s leash in the other enough to open the front door, he inhaled the smells of roasting vegetables and garlic. 

He didn’t announce their arrival when he came in the door; instead, Steve released Teddy immediately and let him run to herald their return personally. He was barely finished unzipping his coat when he heard what must have been Teddy knocking into Tony’s lap in his excitement, because Tony was breathlessly laughing and, by the sounds of it, trying to corral the excited dog away from his work. 

“Teddy! Hey—hey! Easy, boy—easy, no—Steve?” Tony finally had to yell, “down boy! Steve, what the hell is—come get him!” 

Steve frowned and kicked off his shoes in a hurry to do just that, and without thinking it through he dropped the big brown paper bags he’d been carrying into an armchair nearby to scoop the dog up in his arms instead, and he looked Tony over with concern. “What’s wrong, Tony? Did he hurt you?”

“No, but—” Tony grunted in reluctant frustration as he gestured around him at all the laundry around him that now had stains and imprints of wet dog over them. “He’s got half the town park in his coat, Steve, and now it’s all over the laundry.”

Teddy whimpered pitifully in Steve’s arms, clearly frustrated to be so close to his favorite and yet so far away, and he squirmed mightily in renewed attempts to free himself. But he was still a young dog, barely thirty pounds, and he was no match for Steve. 

“I’m sorry buddy,” Tony told him, reaching up to rub at Teddy’s face gently, and Steve obligingly lowered him so Tony could reach better. “But you’re really gross right now. How about daddy gives you a bath and then you can come play?”

“What? I—”

“Bucky gave us shampoo for him,” Tony talked over Steve, “I left it by the bathtub in the bedroom. Thanks,” he added belatedly when Steve opened his mouth again, undoubtedly to protest, effectively ending the discussion. 

With a long, deep sigh of frustration, Steve carried the crying dog away in the direction of the attached bedroom. 

“Hey, Steve?” Tony called after him, to which Steve only hummed irritably in response. “Pro tip: You might want to consider a shower, too.”

That time, Steve only answered by slamming the door behind him.

*** 

More than an hour later the movie in the background was a high-budget sequel to a low-budget classic, and Steve walked out to the living room in pajama bottoms and a ratty old t-shirt that looked small enough to be Tony’s. Teddy was bundled in his arms in a giant, make-shift towel cocoon which Steve kept rubbing at from time to time as he tried to dry the poor puppy up. 

“First chance I get, I’m shaving him,” Steve told Tony, tired of all the scrubbing and rubbing this curly creature needed to dry off. “Are you sure he isn’t just a sentient hairball?”

“Aren’t we all?” Tony pondered philosophically, though possibly a little delayed if Steve’s questioning look was anything to go by. Tony shrugged at him and quickly turned away, trying to focus on the task he had at hand instead, which was to fold the clothes he’d thrown in for a second round after Teddy’s mauling. 

But he clearly didn’t look away fast enough, and Steve wasn’t as dense as people sometimes gave him credit for. He continued scrubbing the dog dry, now with a self-satisfied smirk that Tony recognized as trouble. 

“So you like the muscles,” Steve mused, not even trying to sound innocent. “Or is it the arms specifically?”

“Fuck you,” Tony mumbled, chucking a wadded up kitchen towel at him. It unfurled mid-air and didn’t quite make it all the way to Steve’s face, but the sentiment remained. “You know you’re hot, don’t be so smug.”

“He’s almost ready,” Steve told him instead, referring to the mostly-dry animal in his arms. “Let me know when you’re ready for him.”

To Teddy’s dismay, Tony got up and started the process of putting all the piles of clean laundry away, until what little remained could be left unfolded in the laundry basket. Tony came up to him and held his arms for the dog, and with some cautious shuffling Steve was able to hand over the ecstatic dog without passing on the wet-dog towel, too. 

“Who’s my good, clean boy?” Tony cooed softly, taking a seat on the floor immediately to let the dog sit more comfortably in his lap. “Where have you two been all day? I was worried you’d run off with my heart—ohh, that’s such a good rope, what a good rope you found, give me—give—no, give me—okay, how do you expect me to pu—that’s a good boy!” he praised with an affected grunt, “damn, how strong you’ve become, Teddybear!”

“I needed to clear my head,” Steve said quietly after watching Tony and Teddy play tug-o-war for a little while, smiling to himself at how ready Tony was to let Teddy think he won, as if the dog might remember such a slight to his budding ego. “How’s your day been?”

“I was okay,” Tony told him a little absently, “cleaned the house, did the laundry—got the recycling sorted, that was insane. We really need to call them and get a second bin, how do they expect us to recycle effectively with one bin?”

“I’ll call them on Monday,” Steve promised, and then he seemed to remember something. “Hey, did you get started on the food? I brought some Chinese.”

Tony looked up, startled, as if he couldn’t believe what Steve had said. “You brought Chinese food?”

“Yeah. It’s been a long day, I thought maybe you’d be too tired to cook… but maybe you already did? Something smelled nice earlier.”

“It was just roasting vegetables,” Tony told him, still a little too distracted to sound like himself. “Its for your lunches Monday Tuesday. You're home on Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah—yeah, I am. Then—uh,” Steve looked around them, looking for the brown paper bags. “Where’d the bags go?”

Tony let the dog win the rope war and got up immediately. “I put them in the kitchen.” 

Steve got up, too, and he waved at Tony to get back to the living room. “Let me; he’s missed you all day.” 

“Where’d you two go, anyway? You didn’t say.”

“The park, down to the church—we just came from Bucky’s place. Hey,” he added then as he thought of it, “what’s going on with Bucky and Natasha?”

Tony froze and stared in the direction of Steve’s voice long enough that Teddy successfully tumbled him over, plopping himself triumphantly on Tony’s chest and licking his face all over. Tony batted at his eager little face as gently as he could, sputtering a little past the kisses until he could finally manage a squawk “—there’s something going on with _Bucky and Natasha?_ ”

“Yeah, apparently! I guess it must have started at his birthday—” Steve started to say, trying to think back at what those two had even been doing that night, except he really had no memories of that night besides Tony’s voice, Tony’s arms wrapped around him, and his fingers in Steve’s hair, lulling him to a restful sleep. 

“Oh, fuck off!” Tony whined loudly from the living room, drawing Steve’s attention back to the present. “She let you wake me up at three in the godforsaken morning just to get some D?”

Dispelling the illusions of that charming lover Tony had appeared as at Bucky’s birthday party, Steve rolled his eyes and came out with two plates of a little bit of everything piled onto them. “I can think of people who have done more for less,” he answered pointedly, ruffling his fingers through Tony’s hair once he’d sat up and accepted his plate. 

“You may have noticed, I’m not doing this to sleep with you,” Tony muttered and stabbed at his lo mein with a fork. “I haven’t forgotten the plan; your equipment is safe from me.”

“Right,” Steve said quietly, stuffing a bit bite into his mouth to avoid any revealing expressions, buying himself nearly a minute before he could politely talk again. “About the plan, Tony. I apologize for how I reacted. Could we talk about the reception again?”

“I’ll end it all there,” Tony told him point blank. “I’ll leave that night.”

Steve stared at him, suddenly caught between surprise and bereavement. “What, in four days?”

“Your family already knows we're together,” Tony continued, “knowing your parents, this isn’t news to anyone. But this way everyone will be there for the break up—and everyone will see you get together with Peggy.”

“...you think you can do all that in one afternoon?” 

“Sure. And I’ve already invited Winston; did he answer my text?” Tony wondered, picking through his food a little bit more selectively as he thought. “He’ll be there, even if it’s a brief visit. We’ll get you the promotion then, too.”

“How—how can you be so sure of all this?” Steve whispered, anxiety starting to creep into his chest, long cold fingers that squeezed a little too tight, a little too long. “It’s Christmas Eve, he’s got a huge family, I’m sure he’ll have plans—what if Peggy doesn’t—”

“They’ll be here,” Tony promised, not even looking up from his plate of food to notice the early signs of Steve’s panic attack. 

“And—and then you’ll leave? Where will you go?” Steve asked breathlessly, rubbing at his sternum with the heel of his palm. He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, but it didn’t work. The attack was rising in his chest, numbing and oppressive, and soon it became impossible to get a breath in, his chest and his airway constricting, and he choked the next time he struggled to inhale. He set his jaw against the pain, the fear of suffocating, and he fell back on thoughts of those beautiful, brown eyes, those nimble, clever fingers, and those mischievous, full lips, until slowly he was able to focus again, slowly remembering how to breathe again.

As he grew more conscious of the world around him, he felt two strong arms around his shoulders, a hand that wasn’t his own rubbing at the center of his chest, and Tony was whispering soft, meaningless words into his hair. 

“Hey there, champ,” Tony whispered, pressing a little kiss to Steve’s temple, “don’t scare me like that. You alright? Better?”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve gasped when he could manage words again. “I—you just surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Tony promised in a gentle voice, and he pressed another kiss to the crown of Steve’s head before removing his arms from around him and stepping back. But Steve instinctively grasped for him, grabbing Tony by the flannel of his shirt and pulled him back again. 

“This is mine,” Steve noted, his mouth twisted down into a thoughtful frown. 

“Most of my clothes were being washed,” Tony reminded him, “I don’t… I mean, I don’t really have so many clothes. You don’t mind that I borrow them, do you? I’ll promise not to stretch them out for you.”

Steve smirked and let him go, shaking his head at the ridiculous promise. “I’m okay with you borrowing what you need, Tony, I just—sometimes, it’s… it’s different. Maybe pick some clothes from my old closet?”

Tony blinked at him in confusion, then frowned down at his plate that was cleaner than the day it was made. “Damnit, you—you _dog_ ,” he muttered, but of course Teddy had vanished like the smart thief he was, and Tony could only pick the plate up and put it away in the kitchen before getting comfortable again against the couch. “So, what’s the difference if I wear your clothes from here or from your parent’s house?”

“Those might actually fit you, for one,” Steve started to say, but when Tony threw a pillow at his head for his trouble, he couldn’t resist snickering. “Don’t take it the wrong way, I’m sure you’ll hit your growth sp—”

“—Don’t finish that sentence if you want to live,” Tony cut in with a growl, hugging another pillow to himself, ready for a second round. 

“I just… it’s not easy, sometimes,” Steve tried to explain then, attempting a serious answer to Tony’s question. “You know, seeing you wearing my clothes it, it—it’s a little, a—you know. Distracting.”

“...what, I remind you of Peggy or something?”

“No! It’s not that, it’s just—come on, Tony, is it too much to ask for? You’re at my parents house every day for Jeopardy, can’t you just take a bag and fill it with clothes you might wear?” Steve asked reasonably, and he got up to reach into laundry basket of unfolded clothes. “When you wear stuff like that,” he held up an old ribbed sweater with faded prints, then also gestured at the plaid flannel Tony was wearing, “or like that, but—but not just that, but also, you know,” and he dug out his old college sweatshirt, “god, like that—it’s just, when you wear it it just — you happen to look very _pert_ , and—and I have to live here, too, and I don’t want to—to somehow…” 

Tony stared at Steve in his confusion, clearly a little thrown. “Pert— _what?_ ”

Steve buried his face in his hand to muffle a loud groan, then in a sudden rush tried to explain. “I don’t want to, to f—f—to—to confuse the situation!”

With a little gasp of understanding, Tony asked, “Like nothing too revealing or—or too tight?”

“Ehh, no,” Steve frowned, trying to think of how to explain it. “Not really, tight and revealing is fine, it’s—it’s this kind of thing,” he dug out a threadbare, button-up denim shirt of his that Tony had taken an interest in recently, “this, for god’s sake! Believe it or not it’s a turn on, you know, or, or you know—”

“… that old thing is a turn-on?”

“Are you kidding me? You look incredible in it!” Steve cried, shaking the offending denim. “Don’t wear it!”

“O-kay,” Tony drawled, unconvinced but rolling with the punches. “If you say so.”

“Thank you,” Steve said with a relieved expression, and his clutching grip of the shirts he’d dug out of the laundry basket were slowly relaxed until he finally dropped the clothes back into the hamper. Then he quietly cleared his throat, and carefully said, “Uh, so, out of fairness... is there anything I wear that you prefer I didn’t?” 

Tony snorted at the thought, eyeing Steve from head to toe, and finally he shook his head. “No, we’re good.”

Steve stared at him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, from hopeful to skeptical and back again. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Tony said with a confused little frown. “Why? Does that surprise you?”

“Well, I… I—when I talked to Sam and Bucky today, they said,” he cleared his throat, glancing down at his feet briefly before thinking back on what Bucky had said about not being a coward, so he tried again. “They said sometimes, when you talk about us—when you talk about me, they… they said I was being blind to, to how you feel. About me.”

Tony watched him struggle through that whole confession, but in the end found he had very little to say. He sighed to himself, then slowly unfolded from his position on the floor to stand up in front of Steve, even reaching to rub his arm gently in a comforting gesture. “Listen, I don’t want this to be a disappointment to you, because—really, it’s flattering, okay? But I know where you were today,” he told him in a tired voice, absent of reprimand or jealousy. “I could smell her on you so fucking easily. And yeah, your friends are right, I am in love with Steve: but that’s _my_ Steve, the man I think about when I make up our stories. My husband would never leave me for hours and then neglect to tell me that he’s been at his ex’s house. So am I in love with you?” Tony repeated gently, lowering his voice in sympathy. “No, Steve. You have nothing to worry about.”


	9. American Gothic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days leading up to their reception on Christmas Eve.

“Maybe it’s more complicated,” Natasha pointed out, “maybe you need to talk to _him_ about this and not to me.”

“More complicated?” Steve said with a scowl, following her lead through the Boston pedestrian lunch traffic with more elbows and aggression than strictly necessary. “He has no friends in the area, Nat. His family is broken up, and then to top it off, his employer and landlord assaulted him. Do you need it to be more complicated than that to show a little sympathy?”

Natasha rolled her eyes and didn’t so much as slow down at what Steve was saying. “Whatever, Steve. You said he keeps moving, so maybe he’ll just… do the same thing again.”

“Maybe,” Steve admitted, though a little uncomfortably. “But why should he have to, Nat? Everybody who knows him in Dobbs Mill loves him. He could get a job with the school as a permanent shop teacher so easily—”

“Working with your dad,” Natasha reminded him dryly. 

“—who cares very much about him! I don’t like the idea of Tony leaving a family and—and people, friends, who all care about him,” Steve told her with stubborn finality, as if that was all that mattered. “He shouldn’t have to leave it all—do you really think they’d stop loving him because he’s my ex?”

“Maybe not,” Natasha answered honestly with a shrug and turned the corner to their lunch spot. “But what would that mean for Peggy?”

Steve groaned at the thought and took his frustration out on the poor door handle, wrenching it down and jerking the door open. “Don’t remind me. At this rate I think _we_ will have to move to Boston just to get some peace.”

“You don’t even know if she’ll accept your proposal,” Natasha reminded him as they waited to be seated. “She could say no again.”

“What is it with you and worst case sce—where are we?” Steve asked suddenly, frowning as he took in their environment. “Is this—is this the Budapest?”

“Yeah, as we agreed this morning,” Natasha drawled, “an all you can eat lunch buffet _and_ a discount for Mosby’s employees.”

“I’m not eating here,” Steve growled at her, already marching back to the door. “Anywhere but here! The way they treated—”

“Ms. Romanova! Mr. Rogers, hello! Merry holidays!” Carol greeted them with a delighted smile, and he came around to shake their hands. “It has been very long since you visit last—come, come, it is very good, very good, holiday buffet—”

“How dare you,” Steve seethed when Carol tried to shake his hand, showing far too many teeth, and Carol stepped back and withdrew his hand on instinct. “Tony told me what you did.”

“Tony?” Carol wondered, confused at first then suddenly beaming with a smile. “Ah, sweet Tony—how is my Tony? He disappeared, no word. I miss him, he is always fun for me—will you tell him how I miss him? He is very kind, very beautiful—”

The words faded into the garbled static of unintelligible background noise. Steve’s world narrowed to nothing but Carol’s face and sudden rage burned through his nerves, a yearning that was only satisfied by the crunch of bone under his knuckles, the sting of impact, and the scream of alarm that tore out of Carol’s throat. Natasha got her arms around Steve’s chest and was hauling him backwards before Steve came back to his senses. 

Carol was sprawled on the floor, holding his face and staring up at Steve over his fingers in confusion and fear. Several of the servers were running to him, calling Carol’s name in concern. 

“Tony deserved better than you!” Steve roared, struggling against Natasha’s grip to get at Carol still. “You despicable filth—”

One of the women helping Carol seemed to finally realize what Steve was shouting about and she turned to look at Steve in confusion. “Tony? What do you—what happened?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Steve glowered, managing one step in Carol’s direction. “That bastard—put out or get out? Is that how you treat everyone, or was it just him?”

“What happened?” Carol wondered, beginning to look more concerned than hurt. “Is Tony hurt? Tell him, tell him he always welcome here.”

“Steve,” Natasha hissed, jerking him backwards more forcefully to get his attention. “Steve, it’s not adding up—”

“Oh, cause nobody would lie about committing assault—”

“You think Carol hurt Tony?” the same woman cried in disbelief, and she finally helped the others get Carol up on his feet, promising him she would take care of it and find out about Tony. She put herself firmly between them and waited until Carol was ushered away before leading Steve and Natasha outside to a more quiet corner to speak. “I don’t know who you are, but you are out of line. Carol wouldn’t hurt a fly. What is this you’re saying about Tony?”

Steve eventually stopped struggling against Natasha as Carol was taken out of sight, and made good on following the waitress who was asking about Tony. But her warm words about Carol pissed him off again, and he outright grimaced. “How do you know Tony?”

The redhead raised a brow, clearly less than impressed by Steve’s show of disgust. “I’m Pepper, I’m his friend. Who are you?”

“Wait,” Steve managed quietly, having expected anything but what Pepper said. “You’re his what? He said he had no friends here. He’s new to Boston.”

“He… he is, now,” Pepper admitted, “he’d been away for a year since he left the program. Hasn’t been back two months.”

“So you—you know Tony? You _actually know_ Tony?” Steve wondered, gaining some momentum. “You know what happened to him?”

“I don’t know what you think happened to him,” she answered him slowly. “Where is he?”

“Why do you want to know?” Natasha asked her tersely. 

Pepper eyed Natasha and Steve, and instead of answering Natasha’s question she simply asked a different one. “Is he safe?” 

“Of course he’s safe,” Steve snapped impatiently. “How about you tell me why you were defending that—that scum, if you call yourself Tony’s friend?”

Pepper’s brows crossed in a brief display of frustration, then as if through years of practice she smoothed out her expression. “For one, Carol doesn’t own the apartments above the restaurant,” she said calmly, “and Tony left me a note to say he was leaving the morning he disappeared, but he didn’t tell me where.”

“Maybe he had a reason,” Steve countered, still unwilling to accept that Tony would’ve lied to him about something so vile. “Maybe he knew you would tell his attacker.”

“Carol is perhaps the kindest man Tony has ever known,” Pepper said with less patience. “It’s his own family Tony is running away from.”

Steve frowned at what Pepper said, but while he focused on her description of Carol, Natasha honed in on her last statement. “Explain.”

The unexpected anger in Natasha’s voice caught Steve’s attention, and he looked from her to Pepper with a confused look on his face. Pepper glanced around them with concern, and then in a quiet tone she shared what she could. 

“His family is trying to strong-hand him into a life and a job he doesn’t want anymore,” Pepper whispered hurriedly, “if you want more details, you’ll have to ask him, but that—that’s what he’s dealing with right now. He moves a lot—every couple of weeks—but he’s never been gone this long without getting in touch with me. He always finds a way, he always calls or comes back or—he’s even written postcards. Some of his friends keep track of his family and they help him stay ahead, but—there’s messages for him, piling up, and I don’t know what to do, and I—if you see him, could you please—please, please tell him I’m worried?”

Steve stared at her in disbelief, the blood draining from his face in dawning horror. Tony had lied to him, lied about the one thing that explained everything. And Steve had fallen for it—he had just _assaulted a man_ , an innocent man who had expressed concern and sympathy for a person who had abandoned his employment without notice. A man whose first words after being thrown to the floor with a punch in the face (and most likely had his cheek fractured) had asked after Tony’s well-being. Steve whimpered as the pieces started to fall into place faster than he could count them, and he scrubbed a hand over his face as he tried to make sense of it all. 

He should apologize at once and turn himself in for good measure. He wasn’t sure Catholic priests visited jails anymore, but he had one phone call, right? But if his mom found out she would be devastated, what was he going to— 

“He’s in Dobbs Mill,” he heard Natasha tell Pepper, and seeing Pepper writing Dobbs Mill on a napkin brought Steve back to the present. As they talked about how best to find Tony, Steve dug out his wallet and offered Pepper his business card. 

“I have to go. Please, take it,” he told her, “I was—I have no excuse, so please—take it: if Carol wants to press charges that is all you should need. The line connects to my cell. And give him—give Carol my sincere apologies, I am so very, very sorry.”

*** 

“Steve!” Tony called as soon as the front door opened, and he came around into the living room with a big smile to meet Steve and show him a dark red ceramic fondue pot. “Check it out! Aunt Millie and Uncle Herman sent this, how’s that for perfect winter entertainment? Want to fondue on the porch tonight?”

“That’s nice,” Steve said stiffly, too irritated to even look at what Tony was showing him. He took a deep breath and dropped his coat and briefcase over the couch, collecting himself before speaking again. “So guess who I bumped into today?”

“The Dalai Lama,” Tony guessed immediately, then quickly changed his mind. “No, no wait, you’re wearing your irritated face; did someone try to pickpocket you and accidentally grabbed your ass instead?”

“Pepper,” Steve interrupted impatiently. “From the Budapest? You remember her? Because she remembers a lot about you.”

Tony blinked at him, struggling to comprehend the words coming out of Steve’s mouth. Then, with a glance down at the fondue pot in his hands and another glance around the living room, he turned around and hurried into the kitchen. There Tony took refuge in the busywork he’d been puttering with before Steve came home, unpacking the wedding presents and sorting out the recycling. 

But Steve wouldn’t let him abandon the conversation so easily: he followed Tony into the kitchen, continuing his line of rhetorical questions. 

“She’s known you for years, hasn’t she?” he asked Tony first. “She said you left a program—that’s MIT, isn’t it? That’s how you know her, right, from university? Unless you lied about that, too. I mean, I know you’re smart, but smart enough to get into MIT?”

Without any sign of recognition, frustration, or contrition, Tony picked up the container of papers - the decorative wrapping papers, the fillers, the protective sheafs of newspaper - and the folded up cardboard boxes, and carried them all out of the house to the new set of recycle bins. 

“She’s been worried about you, you know,” Steve continued more loudly, and he followed Tony out of the house even though Tony was so pointedly ignoring him. “Imagine her surprise when I told her you’ve been here this whole time, hiding from your abusive boss—and imagine _his_ surprise when I _punched him in the face!_ ” 

Tony dropped everything he’d been carrying and turned around slowly, staring at Steve in disbelief. 

“You did that?”

“Oh yes,” Steve bit out. 

“For me you did that?” Tony repeated before Steve could say anything else, as if he couldn’t understand. “You punched Carol in the face just for me?”

“Tony, how—” Steve growled, incredulous, then he was suddenly shouting, “I punched a perfectly innocent Hungarian!” 

“I—I know,” Tony said slowly, though he still looked more amazed than remorseful. “I know, but ...for me? Nobody’s done anything like that for me before.”

The fight bled out of Steve as Tony’s words registered, leaving him with nothing but the genuine grief of deception. “Tony, you lied to me. I shouldn’t be surprised, but ...why? Why did you come here?”

Tony’s dumbstruck expression turned cold and unreadable. He turned around again, walking away from Steve and the yellow house at a faster pace. 

“You obviously have friends!” Steve yelled after him, marching in pursuit. “Friends who care about you! A family that is turning the country upside down looking for you! Who the hell am I to you? Why did you have to come here and ruin _my_ life?” 

“What the fuck are you not getting out of this deal?” Tony spun around and shouted back at him. “Your parents love you; Peggy wants you back—even Bucky forgave you! What difference does it make why I’m here?”

“What difference does it make?” Steve echoed quietly to himself before he snapped and yelled back, “What difference does it make? It’s the difference between fact and fiction, between—between human interaction and raw bullshit! Just for once, Tony,” he asked in a tired voice, “just for laughs, tell me the truth—tell me why, of all the places you could have gone to, why did you come here?”

Tony couldn’t look at him. For several long, painful minutes he stood unmoving, his arms wrapped around himself and staring down at the Crocs on his feet, until finally, in slow, private words he tried to explain. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he confessed. “I… I wanted to know what it would be like, living in that picture you drew. I’ve never—” he pressed his lips together then, swallowing back the words he had been about to say. “Not just the house, but the town. The people. I only meant to stay a few nights, maybe a week,” he said again, trying to clarify how this really was all an accident. “But this place… this life. I’ve never had anything like this before. I really didn’t—I didn’t mean for it to get this elaborate, but everyone… everyone around here, they keep treating me like I’m somebody. Somebody, not some _thing_. Everyone, but you.”

Steve stared after him as Tony turned away from him again, this time all but running back to the house. He stood there for some time trying to figure out how this felt like his fault again, until the winter chill finally got to him and he hurried into the house after Tony. 

He found Tony in the last place he’d expected to find him: the bedroom. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked the room. A grey duffle lay open and mostly empty on the bed, and he could hear Tony rustling around in the closet out of sight. 

“I’m catching a bus,” Tony answered simply, the anger and anguish from earlier inexplicably absent. 

“What—Tony,” Steve stammered, “what the—is that how you deal with all your problems, you run away? This isn’t something you can just walk out on, not after all we’ve been through. Tony? Tony! How am I supposed to get the promotion you already gave me that Peggy already thinks I’ve got if Mosby comes for the reception and finds that you’ve gone?”

“Dear Christ,” Tony swore from inside the closet and stomped out with a small bundle of clothes—all of his clothes—and stuffed them into the duffle. “Do yourself a damn favor Steve and let it go. Peggy isn’t the Holy fucking Grail.”

“We had a deal!”

“Yeah, and that deal included that we get divorced!” Tony shouted back. 

Steve, unable to think of an answer to that, only nodded in understanding and sat down on the edge of the hot tub in the bedroom. He watched Tony continue to pack up—throwing a few plastic bags into the duffle along with the handful of chew toys Bucky had sent home with Teddy—and found the whole scene unnaturally removed from reality, like he had become a one-man audience of some pay-per-view out of body experience. 

“I’ll pay you alimony,” he heard himself tell Tony. 

Tony paused mid-way through zipping up his bag, and he whipped around to glare at Steve. “ _What?_ ”

“If you stay through the reception,” Steve explained quietly, “just stay—stay and help, and I’ll give you, um—a thousand bucks a month.”

“...for life?”

“Well, yeah,” Steve agreed in a subdued voice, “that’s the custom, isn’t it? Or until you remarry. ”

Tony stared at him, slowly shaking his head at Steve’s state. “I’ll stay,” he finally said, but neither of them seemed particularly thrilled by that promise. “Just keep your wallet in your pocket, Rogers.”

“But—Tony,” Steve tried again, forcing himself to stay calm about it. “I don't have much, but I want you to have something—where will you go?”

“I don’t want your damn pity,” Tony told him coldly. “When I leave on Thursday I’m taking Teddy and what’s in that duffle, and you can get on with your apple pie life as if you never fucking knew me.”

*** 

When Steve woke up the next morning, the sun was up, his lower back ached, and he had twelve missed calls from his mom. He shoved himself up to sitting on the couch and gave some thought to what precisely could have happened before eight in the morning on the first day of his vacation, but any way he looked at it he was at a loss. 

“Tony?” he called into the house. “Hey, Tony, did we have something—” he stopped shouting when he didn’t even hear Teddy’s paws clicking through the house. Despite his stiff joints and sore muscles he got up to his feet to pull the bookcase down its track and settle it against the wall to open the loft view of the living room. 

The house was empty, but before he could begin to worry he saw a Post-It stuck to the coffee table directly in his line of sight. Taking the hint, he climbed down the stairs to see what it said. 

_Eatery for family breakfast_  
_Peggy brought you breakfast casserole (fridge)_  
_Meet us @ chapel, 9:30_

Steve frowned down at the note, surprised by the number of people in his life who voluntarily started their day at the crack of dawn. But he shrugged it off, helping himself to some King Ranch Casserole and taking the relaxing kind of shower that he hadn’t had in weeks. 

By the time he was strolling up to the front steps of the chapel, dressed in comfortable slacks and a sweater his mom had knit him some years ago, he was almost convinced it was all a dream and his 3am alarm would wake him any moment. 

“Steve, dear!” Sarah called before he spotted them, waving at him from near the entrance to the city park. Her arm was looped around Tony’s, and Joseph was walking behind them with Teddy as they all leisurely made their way to him. 

He waved back and hurried to them, jogging the distance and running right into his mom with a big hug. Sarah wrapped her arms around her boy, laughing with delight and demanding (not too seriously) to be put down. 

“How did it feel to sleep in for once?” Tony asked, a warm smile in his words. 

The last thing Steve might have expected of Tony that morning would have been such fondness, and he couldn’t help but grin in return, shaking his head as if to say he didn’t quite believe it. “Pinch me.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but instead he stepped up to Steve’s side and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. 

“How’s that not a— _yow!_ ” Steve yelped and leapt out of his skin, rubbing aggressively at the left side of his ass. Sarah laughed and Joseph slowly shook his head as Steve levelled a flat look at Tony’s wolfish, self-satisfied grin. “Ha _ha._ So funny, Tony.”

“Now that we have established that you are awake,” Joseph said in his patient way, “your mother has been waiting for this for days.”

“Joseph!” Sarah cried, betrayed. “It’s no hurry, this isn’t life or death.”

“No, it’s only your son’s wedding reception,” Tony agreed, and Sarah just beamed with joy to hear those words spoken out loud. Tony laughed and hugged her again, shaking his head. “Steve, you’ve had breakfast, right? Good—then let’s get this show on the road! You said you had a list, didn’t you? Not too many things?”

“Not at all—we only need place settings for about forty people,” Sarah said and started to explain the itemized list of necessities, evidently having memorized the whole shopping list. Steve’s brows climbed up his forehead at the thought of forty people in his home, but Joseph gave him a quelling look before Steve could say a word and dampen his mother’s happiness. 

Sarah and Tony led the way through the boutiques leaving Joseph, Steve, and Teddy to bring up the rear and wonder at the way Tony managed to redirect Sarah’s more extravagant thoughts with more care and tact than either of them could have mustered. 

“He’s an engineer?” Joseph finally asked under his breath, trying to keep it between them. “He behaves like a businessman. A good one.”

“His dad is a businessman,” Steve remembered from his conversation with Pepper. “Tony doesn’t like to talk about him much, though.”

“Then he would not be the quality of man to teach him such compassion,” Joseph concluded with a displeased frown. “Between you and me, son, his judgement of Tony is unwelcome. Tony's hesitance to tell him about his leave of absence from his program alone upsets me. That," he added gravely, "is where your duty lies.”

Steve stared at his dad in befuddlement, at a loss for what to say, what duty even meant, and what his duty was supposed to be in relation to Tony’s dad. 

“Pops, what’s that supposed to—”

“Oh, look! What about this—Steve?” Sarah called for him, waving him over and holding up a large, porcelain platter. “What do you think? For hor d'oeuvres,” she clarified when she mistook Steve’s confused expression. 

Steve made a noncommittal sound, unsure of how to express his distaste for the floral pattern kindly. “I don’t know, mom, it’s… it looks like something Nana would have.”

“What about this?” Tony suggested, holding up a long board made from smoothed oak, a simple design with only one side curving up. 

“That I like,” Steve agreed, smiling with something akin to relief. “That’s us.”

“Understated,” Tony said as he held it out for Sarah to look at more closely. “The wood would go well with the colors of the house, and they could double as shelves between use.”

Sarah nodded thoughtfully, as if trying to imagine it in their home. “It could work well—I’ll go see what they have in this line. We may have to change the color of the table cloths, the glasses—the plate settings won’t do now,” she was saying mostly to herself as she headed over to the nearest customer service desk. 

“Mom!” Steve called, rushing after her to make sure she wouldn’t buy up the whole boutique in her excitement. 

Tony and Joseph watched them go, the former a little alarmed and the latter thoroughly amused. 

“You knew this would happen,” Tony realized as he finally took in Joseph’s ironic serenity. “You didn’t tell us.”

“So that you might try to prevent it?” Joseph scoffed, albeit with a warm smile. “Sarah has dreamed of this day for many years. We both have, in fact,” he admitted, looking down at the sleeping dog as color rose in his cheeks and his expression approached bashful. “We are both pleased that you agreed to the reception. And that you two are starting to get along; we like to think we had a hand in that.”

Tony watched him as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing or hearing. With his lips pressed down tight in a watery smile, he nodded to stave off having to speak for just another few seconds until he could answer him evenly. “More than you know, dad.”

***

With a clear vision in mind, Sarah spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon leading them through the boutiques and fine antiques. Having learned their lesson, Steve and Tony took turns mediating her choices, and by lunchtime it seemed they were finding an agreeable compromise for the whole affair. 

“I’ve been meaning to take you to Alban’s Den for some time,” Sarah told Tony as they were packing up Steve’s car with their most recent—and, hopefully, last—purchases. “Why don’t we go there for lunch? Their pumpkin cheesecake is out of this world.”

“Yeah, no, we’ve been talking about it for too long, this has to happen,” Tony agreed immediately, and with feigned regret looked from Joseph to Steve to tell them, “sorry, you get no vote.”

“I enjoy Alban’s,” Joseph assured him with a smile. “Their selection of stout is the best in town.”

Tony opened his mouth to speak when Sarah laid a gentle hand on Tony’s forearm in a quiet bid for his attention. “Honey,” she said in a hushed voice, “I think that man is waving at you.”

Confident that Howard would not be the type to wave, Tony turned to see what Sarah was looking at. 

The man was unmistakable. From three blocks away, his height and the breadth of his shoulders set him apart from everyone else; had that not been enough, the daffodil yellow scrubs he was wearing under his open trench coat was unlike the darker Christmas colors most people preferred. 

“That’s… that's Boomer,” Tony told them quietly, cautiously waving back. “But he’s—I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

Boomer reached them before Tony had a chance to say more, and he swept Tony up in such a hug that he lifted Tony two feet clear in the air. “Tony! How you frightened me, even Pepper couldn’t tell me where you were! You disappeared.”

“Put me down,” Tony said and gave Boomer a smack on the shoulder to emphasize the urgency, and he was gently put back on his feet at once. “I told you I needed time, Boomer.”

“You—but,” Boomer stammered, then gave him the saddest hangdog look his pleasant face could muster. “But how much time, Tony?”

“As much as I need,” Tony told him with clear impatience, but he offered some comfort by reaching to rub his forearm in a soothing gesture. He turned to his family with a genuine look of surprise as he did his best to introduce them. “This is Boomer Bower, or—well, that’s what we call him; his name is Donald Blake.”

“Dr. Donald Blake,” Boomer corrected with a grin, but when Tony gave him an unimpressed look he quickly adopted his shamefaced pout again. 

“ _Doctor_ Donald Blake, my ex. He is a pediatric surgeon finishing his residency at Harvard Medical,” Tony elaborated on his introduction, if a little impatiently. “Boomer, this is my family: my husband Steve, and my in-laws, Sarah and Joseph. Steve is a senior architect and partner with Mosby  & Associates in Boston, Sarah is an oncology nurse, and Joseph is the principal of Dobbs Mill’s school.”

“What a pleasure!” Boomer declared cheerfully, beaming at them all. “I am glad—glad and relieved!—to see Tony is safe and well, and in such excellent company. I—” he abruptly stopped speaking, then looked at Tony with a confused little furrow between his brows. “Wait, he’s your _what?_ ”

“His husband,” Steve said more loudly, all but snarling. 

Boomer frowned back at Steve, then looked at Tony in genuine confusion. “This Hufflepuff thinks he is your husband?”

“Boomer,” Tony cautioned with a drawl, and to Steve’s added frustration he resumed rubbing Boomer’s arm to calm him down. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Joseph,” Sarah said quietly, reaching for her husband, “I think—I think we should let them talk alone. We will be at Alban’s Den,” she told Steve and Tony in a hurry, walking away with Joseph and Teddy in tow. 

“You coddled the boy all his life,” they heard Joseph remind her for what could not have been the first or tenth time. “Now he can’t even keep his spouse, Sarah.”

“Tony, you’re the genius,” Boomer said reasonably, “look at him and look at me. You call me Boomer Bower. Have I not boomed your bower?”

“Can we not right now?” Tony sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose against the mounting headache. “What do you want?”

The concession satisfied Boomer for only a moment, and he glanced at Steve skeptically. “Perhaps we should speak in private? It is a message from Jane.”

Steve grumbled his displeasure, unhappy about being so easily dismissed in the conversation. “And who the hell is Jane?”

“My partner,” Boomer answered him in a thunderous tone. “Show respect when you speak her name.”

“Uh, Steve—how about you go wait with mom and dad?” Tony hurried to say with a placating smile, forcefully inserting himself in the testosterone duel between Boomer and Steve before it escalated out of hand. “Please? This is about my family, it’s… it’s private.”

“I’ll be right there,” Steve conceded reluctantly, pointing to a storefront not too far away. “Take your time. Then we’ll go to Alban’s together.”

Tony and Boomer watched him walk away to the promised distance, where he stubbornly stood and watched them, as if Boomer might suddenly decide to throw Tony over his shoulder and run away with him like some 18th century damsel.

“Territorial much?” Boomer snickered, smirking down at Tony until he noticed how cross Tony was starting to look. He blinked down at his friend and stole a few glances at the glowering architect standing guard from a block away, and in the end he could only roll his eyes. “Truly? You have affections for this man?”

“He’s having a rough year. Are you here to judge my friends, or to give me a message?”

“As your most recent lover should I not—”

“—don’t make me call Jane,” Tony cut in with a warning, and Boomer sobered with a plaintive huff.

“Your father has become increasingly erratic in the past two weeks,” Boomer told him quietly, cutting to the chase. “It is no longer messengers and anonymous faces in suits he is sending for you: he has been visiting the labs and interrogating people himself, and last Jane saw of him, he was not in a good state. She could not explain what this meant,” Boomer added with some regret, “but she was much adamant: he is not well. She wished me to tell you that should you worry for your father’s health, at least tell him you are well. It has been a year, Tony. He deserves to know you are alive.”

“He knows what he has to do!” Tony snapped, then quickly lowered his voice. “When he shuts down the weapons manufacturing division, I’ll come home. It’s not that complicated: he either wants the money and the glory, or he wants a family. He couldn’t quit drinking for my mom; I’m not even asking him to change his lifestyle.”

“Only his life’s work and legacy,” Boomer pointed out gently. He laid his large, gentle paw of a hand on Tony’s shoulder to comfort him. “If this is your wish, I shall not argue. I cannot relate. But my friend, if you would like to remain hidden, you must move quickly. When I searched for Dobbs Mill and your name, the date and location of your wedding reception was the first item found.”

Tony groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face, covering his mouth as if it would keep the curses from spilling past his lips until he could at least acknowledge Boomer’s warning with a nod. 

“I’m leaving on Thursday,” he told his friend quietly. “As far from here as two-hundred bucks can take me.”

“No, you have more at your disposal than that,” Boomer corrected, and he patted at the front of his open coat until he felt the envelope and pulled it out for Tony. It was stuffed with cash and little slips of paper, well wishes and short messages from his friends. “This is from many of us so that you may not track us down for repayment. Take it,” he insisted, forcing it back into Tony’s hand when he tried to give it back. “Should you require shelter, a friend of mine near Seattle has offered his place. His name is Bruce.”

“I _will_ pay you back for this,” Tony promised him despite what Boomer just said. 

“If you wish to negotiate, speak with Pepper,” Boomer said with the sly pleasure that came from knowing he had won the argument. “I must go, my train will leave soon. What of a farewell kiss for your former lover?”

Tony eyed him with a wry smirk. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Did you forget it when those visiting Nordic academics kept calling me Thor?” Boomer asked rhetorically. “I think not.”

“Come here, God of Thunder,” Tony laughed, reeling Boomer in by the low-cut collar of his scrubs to press a soft kiss to his lips. “If Jane comes after me, I’m blaming you.”

“She would only demand a kiss of her own,” Boomer told him proudly, then clapped him on the shoulder a last time before stepping away. “I wish you luck, my friend. Be well!”

***

It was not until many hours later, after a long lunch with their parents and getting all the new purchases put away, that Steve and Tony could finally kick back and relax. Steve brought down the quilts from the loft, and Tony popped four bags of popcorn for dinner, and soon they lay squeezed into the couch from either side with a book each, cocooned in a quilt each with their toes wedged between each other’s legs for warmth.

“What are you reading?” Steve wondered as he leafed through his own newly acquired book on art history of Southeast Asia. 

“The Order of the Phoenix,” Tony said around a mouthful of popcorn. 

Steve lasted all of ten seconds before demanding, “What did he mean when he called me a Hufflepuff?”

“Ignore Thor, he’s a total Gryffindor,” Tony shrugged off with a sigh. “I’ve tried to explain to him that Hufflepuff are only second to Ravenclaw—”

“As if!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Cher. Did I hit a nerve?” Tony tried to say with a straight face, but Steve’s indignation had him laughing despite his best efforts. “Come on! You know we’re the best House!”

“I don’t even identify as Hufflepuff and I know you’re wrong,” Steve groused, stuffing a fistful of popcorn in his mouth just so he could chew aggressively on something. “Hufflepuff is the best.”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Tony closed his book and put it aside. “Fine, enlighten me: why is Hufflepuff better than Ravenclaw?”

“First of all, your kind gets so distracted by the puzzles and the problems that you forget the context that actually gives the problem and it’s solution meaning,” Steve started, counting off his first point on his thumb, then the second on his pointer, and so on. “Second, in real life it’s not your innate intelligence or qualities that makes you successful or meaningful to the society around you: it’s how you use that intelligence, the hard work and dedication you commit to the people who need your help. Third—”

A handful of popcorn hit him in the face, and Steve sputtered to silence before he had a chance to express point three. “—Tony!”

With his hand hovering over his own oversized bowl of popcorn, Tony dared him to say another word. “For a not-Hufflepuff you’re very defensive...”

“Why, is your little Ravenclaw head spinning bec—Tony!” Steve yelped at the second round of popcorn pelting, and without thinking (and to Teddy’s great delight) he lobbed a handful of his own right back at Tony. It was the drop that burst the dam, and popcorn rained from both ends of the sofa until their bowls were empty and all the popcorn was either dispersed around them, in their hair, or in Teddy’s mouth. 

With nothing left to throw, the tension came to a frustrated stalemate, both of them far too close, far too eager, and far out of their depth lingering on the ledge without an outlet. 

“Who was he really?” Steve whispered then, hoarse for reasons he wouldn’t acknowledge, and Tony did him the favor of not pretending to be confused. 

“We were nothing official,” Tony admitted with a quiet sigh. “Some nights, I went home with him and Jane. Most nights, I didn’t.”

“Is that your, uh,” Steve tried to ask, fighting his rising blush to get his words out evenly. “You know, your type?”

Tony looked down into his empty bowl, tracing his fingers through the salt and melted butter for want of something to do with his hands. “No,” he promised, “no, that… that night was all you. I mean, the muscles didn’t hurt,” he added with the flash of a grin, “but mostly it was what you told Mosby about his new building—that took balls, Steve.”

The embarrassment returned to Steve with the kind of force reserved for the stench of a forgotten gym bag, and Steve cringed and shrank into his side of the couch, jerking the quilt up to cover his beet-red face. 

“Steve?” Tony stared after him in confusion, giving his thigh a little kick under the quilts. “Are—Steve, are you crying?”

“ _No,_ ” Steve huffed from under the blanket. “I just—I can’t believe you heard that.”

“Heard it? I saw it,” Tony told him, doing a poor job of concealing his amusement now. He shuffled around on the couch and draped himself bodily over Steve’s curled up form, cuddling into his arm through the two quilts. “You really feel that bad about it? He clearly doesn’t hold it against you: he’s coming to your wedding reception. Plus, it got you laid—isn’t that good?”

Enough time passed that Tony started to look suspicious, resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder and pursing his lips at the concealed lump where Steve’s head was. Eventually Steve tugged down enough of the blanket to peek out and meet Tony’s questioning look. 

“Was it?”

“Was it what?” Tony wondered, whispering the words. 

Steve blinked up at him, again starting to blush a fierce red. “Was it good?—I, was I good?”

“You were good, Steve,” Tony assured him with a warm smile. “I mean, how many partners have you had? Ten?”

“Four,” Steve admitted, to Tony’s evident shock. “No, you know what? We’re not talking about this.”

Tony smiled at Steve’s sudden embarrassment, and he nodded his agreement with Steve’s decision. “Done deal. But hey, if it helps I expected you to be way worse! My friend and I, we’ve had this theory about people like you—”

Steve frowned like he wasn’t sure if he should be offended or curious. “What do you mean, people like me?”

“Conventionally handsome,” Tony explained, patting Steve through the quilt where either his left bicep or pec might be—it wasn’t too easy to tell with two thick quilts between them. “Muscles, jaws, tall, blue eyes—you’re kind of a package, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of a recent upgrade,” Steve said with a wry expression, not too pleased about it somehow. “Growth spurt, senior year of college. Until then I… um, I was 5’7” and maybe over a hundred pounds on a good day.”

Tony settled his chin on Steve’s shoulder again as he listened, humming softly in understanding. “I started college at fifteen,” he said quietly, deliberately calm so that Steve wouldn’t react with too much alarm. As it was, Steve looked up at him with warring expressions of concern and anger, so Tony quirked a grin at him. “It was seven years ago, Steve. Safe to say I survived. But I get it; it was weird, looking different. And I even had the excuse of being younger.”

Steve watched him, finally settling on asking, “You really are a genius, aren’t you?”

“That’s what they tell me.” 

“Then what was your theory, the one you and your friend came up with?” Steve wondered, giving him a little nudge. “Share your insights with a baseline pleb.”

“There’s nothing basic about you,” Tony laughed, and he pushed up a little to rest more of his weight against the sofa than on Steve to give them both some space. “Alright, are you ready? This is big time, it’s the big leagues! My friend Charles and I hypothesized that people like yourself, who are not only handsome but eager, and also,” he hummed in consideration as he tried to think of a polite turn of phrase, “ _endowed_ , would be lazy as shit in bed—you know, let the positive shock value do the legwork.”

Steve blinked at him with a pinched expression, trying not to smile back at Tony’s evident amusement. “How did you get that idea?”

“Anecdotal evidence.”

“So,” Steve drawled, having expected more of an answer. “What happened?”

“ _Empirical evidence,_ ” Tony said with a wicked grin, and Steve couldn’t contain his smile any longer. 

“What did you do? A sign-up sheet?” he wondered, and he rolled a little on the couch to slide further down so he could rest his head against the headrest, gently maneuvering Tony to encourage him to tuck in against his side. “‘Only handsome and well-hung folks need apply’?”

“Of course not!” Tony scoffed with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, obliging Steve by wedging himself seated between Steve’s body and the back of the sofa. “We needed a control group, a reference. We would go out every week and pick our targets. We were interested in three variables, right: attractiveness, endowment, and also eagerness, each categorized as average, below average, and above average. Six months and sixty samples later,” he continued as Steve hummed and nodded along to show he was following, “we concluded that there was a significant negative interaction effect between above average attractiveness and above average eagerness, but average eagerness and below average endowment had a significant positive interaction effect.”

Steve blinked at him slowly, trying to parse through the words to make sense of Tony’s conclusion. “I get the first part,” he started to say, and Tony quickly intervened with layman's terms. 

“Hot guys who pursue you are most likely to be disappointing,” he explained, “and guys who aren’t trying that hard, and don’t have anything too remarkable between their legs, are likely to be real stars in bed.”

“So what you’re saying is that you knew better, but you still gave me a chance,” Steve said with a soft smile, “a man of science with data on his side took a leap of faith. All because I lack tact.”

“Don’t judge me, Rogers,” Tony warned him with a smirk, “or I’ll sic my dog on you.”

“Ha! You've forgotten one great flaw in your plan, O Master Villain,” Steve reminded him with a teasing smile, and at the curious quirk of Tony’s head, Steve whispered: “I’m the one who feeds your attack dog.”

*** 

When Tony opened his eyes the next morning, the world beyond his generous windows was covered in white, pristine snow. He lay there in bed for some time, staring out the window in awe of the birds and squirrels buzzing around the birdfeeders in the small evergreens. Outside, the wind was picking up, whipping and whining by turns, and somewhere beyond the inspiration and majesty of a winter morning, he was distantly grateful that it was Steve who took Teddy on morning walks and not he himself. 

It took some time to make himself look away from the beauty of the day, but eventually he pushed and rolled his way out of bed. He was blindly en route to the coffee machine when he heard Steve’s voice. 

“Hm?” Tony asked the empty living room at large, and it wasn’t until Steve called his name again that he thought to look up towards the loft. “What?”

Steve’s slight frown perked into an affectionate smile, and he shook his head. “Never mind, Tony. Get your coffee. Sam called, Christmas Eve Eve brunch at the firehouse is starting. I think he also said something about Sharlene demanding your A-game?” 

“The _nerve_ —”

“I told him that's the only game in town,” Steve interrupted him before Tony got too excited. “I don’t know how you got into it with Sharlene; it’s not boxing, is it? That woman’s got the meanest left hook this side of the Mason-Dixon Line.”

“Darts,” Tony assured him with ready confidence and wandered on to the kitchen for his coffee. “She’s not even close; I’ll have it in the bag before you finish your first deviled egg.”

“You better mean that, Tony!” Steve called after him as Tony walked out of sight. “He told me what the prize is, and I want it!”

Tony snorted at Steve’s ludicrous presumption. “And what makes you think I’ll give it to you?”

“If you’re leaving tomorrow afternoon, why would you want a five hundred dollar gift card to the Eatery?”

“Touche,” Tony agreed between sips of coffee, coming back into sight briefly on his way back to the living room. “Pack up the dog - be ready in ten!”

It wasn’t even ten minutes before they were both dressed in terrible, gaudy Christmas sweaters, Teddy had his holiday-appropriate bowtie clipped on, and they had all piled into the old Mustang. Steve turned on the radio to some cheerful holiday music station that promised a stream of uninterrupted seasonal classics, but after some passive attention he slowly recognized that the station was broadcasting a debate instead of music. 

“What was that?” Tony wondered, shifting Teddy so he could better reach the knob for volume. 

But Steve reached it first, changing the station until he got to something that was playing holiday music. “So much for Christmas cheer,” he said with a sigh, but he visibly relaxed as the ridiculous Christmas music filtered into the background. 

“The news doesn’t stop just because a fraction of the population opens presents one morning,” Tony deadpanned, but Steve just raised his brow to say how unmoved he was by that argument. 

“And what could be so important in the world right now that it can’t wait two days?” Steve countered. “A celebrity dies, the President wears jorts, people are buying more Christmas presents online than in stores than ever before and if you don’t listen _right now_ our economy will collaps—”

“—alright, alright! I get it,” Tony whined, “I won’t Grinch if you don’t Father Christmas.”

“Don’t turn Santa into a verb—”

“Steve,” Tony said in a stern tone, “remember what Father Hughes said? Communication. That’s a two-way street.”

For a grown man, Steve had a fairly compelling pout. “Fine,” he muttered as they pulled up to the fire station. “I won’t Father Christmas if you don’t Grinch.”

*** 

The fire station had the largest indoor Christmas tree that Tony had ever seen, and it was decorated with white and gold ornaments to within an inch of its life. There seemed to be no discernable theme for the decorations apart from color—of the tree or all the rest of the station, which was also decorated with great flare and excitement. As beautiful as it all seemed at first glance, a closer look revealed ornaments ranging from angels and babies in mangers, to beautiful ceramic figurines in positions inspired by the Kama Sutra and glass-blown penises. 

The expansive communal space with its combined kitchen and lounge had been turned into a Christmas spectacular, with a sprawling catered brunch buffet and a table further down set aside for spiked drinks for all tastes: mimosas, hot chocolate and rum, eggnog, and mulled wine. 

They had not spent thirty seconds in the lounge before people turned and yelled at them—Sharlene jeering Tony on, Sam welcoming Steve, and a whole chorus of people shouting at them to kiss. Ava, the station Dalmation, trotted up to them in her slow elderly way and offered a brief moment of reprieve as she demanded petting and affection. 

“They’re your friends,” Tony whispered to Steve when he was leaning down to rub at Ava’s happy face. Steve chuckled and straightened up beside him, and he was still smiling when he gently cupped Tony’s cheek in his hand and pulled him in closer for a tender, chaste kiss on the lips. 

Half the crowd wolf-whistled and cheered while the other half booed. Over the cacophony they heard more than saw Bucky shout, “Uninspired: four out of ten!”

Tony laughed against Steve’s lips and walked away then, clipping Teddy off his leash so he could run after Ava and the other firemen. “What do you want from me?” he complained, “feed me first if you want something extraordinary, damnit.”

“If that’s how today’s gonna go,” Sharlene interrupted, “start eating now, Tony. I’m not accepting some ‘you didn't feed me it wasn't no fair fight’ argument later, got it?”

“Even starved I’ve got enough fight in me to take you down,” Tony assured her, but she only laughed—big, loud, and shameless, just like she was—and came to drape an arm over his shoulder to lead him to the buffet spread. 

“Come on, leave that fancy architect behind for two minutes, he’s gonna wanna talk about the news anyhow,” she muttered, already shoving a plate in Tony’s hands. “One architect dies, and they all gotta commune.”

“Someone checked out on Christmas Eve Eve?” Tony wondered, and he glanced back at Steve to try to gauge how concerned he seemed from a distance. After all, Mosby was fairly old, it wouldn’t be too strange— 

“Yeah, they found Howard Stark’s body this morning,” she said with a shrug. “They don’t know when it happened yet, but looks like that drunk finally got what was coming to him, just drove off some cliffside in upstate New York—Tony? Hey, Tony?”

Tony had dropped his plate on the buffet table and was already halfway to the door when he finally responded to Sharlene’s words. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered, “Mike—I promised, you reminded me—one hour,” he finished weakly, then he turned and rushed out of the door. 

He ran, as far from the celebrations and the laughter and the happiness as he could. 

*** 

“James,” Natasha moaned against his ear when the phone rang again, “answer that and I will make you regret it.”

“Natasha, it’s— _ohh_ ,” he choked on a long, deep-throated groan when Natasha rolled her hips down in his lap, claiming every ounce of his attention. After a long day they had finally found the time to be alone, in a disheveled state on his couch, clothes undone but still mostly on, and his hard cock strained against his boxers through the open fly of his jeans, trapped between his own body and Natasha’s commanding hips. 

“— _patient_ ”

She let her head fall back with a husky sigh before obliging him and leaning back enough for Bucky to catch his breath. 

“Answer it.”

He grunted at her in accusation, still too out of breath to really string five words together evenly, but with another glance at the screen he forcefully reminded himself of how Frank’s pregnant cat had been the last time he’d seen her before he swiped right to answer the call and turned it on speakerphone. 

“Barnes,” he grunted in greeting. 

“Hi, Dr. Barnes,” Frank answered from the other end, his voice almost drowned out against the rowdy background noise. “Listen, I wouldn’t normally call about this, but there’s a young man here that nobody seems to recognize and I thought maybe he’s up from Dobbs Mill. Does the name Tony Edwards mean anything to you?”

“He’s my friend,” Bucky told him after a brief pause, and he glanced up at Natasha. She nodded in understanding, and she gently slid off his lap and started to right her clothes. “Is he alright?”

“You might want to call his family or come down here yourself,” Frank told him. “I’ve just cut him off the booze and he’s getting rowdy, ‘n I don’t like the way some of the folks here are looking at him.”

“Let’s go,” Natasha told him immediately, and Bucky hurried to thank Frank and let him know they were on the way. “Where is he?”

“Frank works at Harvelle’s, a bar forty miles down I-93,” he told her as he righted his own clothes and grabbed for his wallet and keys. “Regular trucker hang-out.”

Natasha grunted to herself at the thought of what drunk truckers might do to Tony, and only spared a thought to grab an extra jacket from Bucky’s hallway closet as they rushed out to the car. Bucky sped the whole way there, and he had barely thrown the car into park before Natasha was climbing out. She was already marching through the bar looking for Tony by the time Bucky got in through the door; he made a beeline for the bar and waved Frank over. 

“Where is he?” 

“In the back toilets,” Frank said with nod towards the Staff Only door, and motioned for Bucky to knock himself out. “He propositioned some truckers and got into trouble. Last I saw him, he was sacrificing his guts at the porcelain altar.”

“Thanks, Frank,” Bucky said as he hurried around the counter, calling Natasha’s name; she wasted no time following him. They found him in the staff bathroom, as promised, lying in a mess of his own making and curled up around the toilet with his face pressed against the cool porcelain. 

Bucky got down on his knees beside him to try to get his attention, but Tony was unconscious. Unbothered by the vomit, he sat down immediately and gathered Tony in his arms, making quick work of clearing Tony’s mouth and nose of the thankfully minimal vomit on his face. 

“Tony?” he all but shouted, calling his name several times until Natasha must have had enough and kneeled down beside them to slap Tony hard in the face. Tony groaned and stirred, his eyelids fluttering open as he struggled to focus his glazed over eyes on Natasha’s face. She gave him an encouraging smile and helped Bucky wrap him up in the extra jacket they had brought for him. 

“Let’s get you home,” she told him, rubbing his arm gently. “You think you can walk?”

He groaned pitifully at the thought but nodded emphatically only a moment later. “Glass of water? I got him,” Bucky assured her, and she took his word for it, leaving them to do as she was asked. 

“For the record, I’m gonna tear you a new one,” Bucky told him as he gently helped Tony up on his feet, shouldering most of his weight. “Did Steve do something?” 

But when Tony didn’t react or respond, and Bucky shouted Tony’s name right in his ear to startle him awake again. 

“Stay with me, Tony,” he asked loudly, and perhaps more nicely and honestly than he’d have wanted to admit. “Let’s get you home, Sarah will know what to do.”

“I hate—hate him,” Tony blubbered breathlessly, his body shivering against Bucky’s side. He clung to Bucky’s arm in a surprising show of strength that his legs could not replicate, and Bucky did his best to help him stay upright without physically lifting Tony off his feet. 

He was halfway to lifting Tony into a bridal carry when Natasha arrived and helped him from the other side. Together they managed to help him drink a few sips of water, and rubbed his back gently to help warm him up. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Bucky told Natasha under his breath, his teeth gnashing in a restrained anger that was wholly counter to the gentle care he was handling Tony with. “I’m going to run him out of the goddamn town.”

“Are you threatening my friend?” Natasha warned him quietly, but when Tony’s head listed to the left at an unnatural angle she kneed him in the thigh to try to wake him up. “Hey—hey, Tony?” 

“Just _go_ ,” Tony spat, his voice and throat hoarse from overuse. “Fuck you—why—”

“He’s not wrong: we need to move,” Bucky muttered over Tony’s pitiful ranting, and in a single action he got an arm under Tony’s knees and lifted him into his arms, carrying him to the car in a hurry. “Keys are in my jacket pocket,” he told Natasha, “let’s go.”

Natasha got into the backseat and Bucky laid Tony down beside her with his head in Natasha’s lap, buckling him in as securely as possible. 

“Jacket,” Natasha ordered, gesturing for the jacket Bucky was currently wearing, and he was quick to shrug it off and drape it over Tony’s legs, only stalling long enough to dig his phone out of the pocket before he slammed the door shut behind him. He scrolled through his contacts until he found Steve’s face. 

It took several tries before the call picked up. 

“Hello, Bucky?” Peggy greeted him hesitantly, her voice tinny on speakerphone. “Is everything alright? Steve can’t come to the phone at the moment.”

“What—why!” Bucky snarled at her, but from the backseat Natasha cleared her throat loudly and so he made an effort to try again in a more civil tone. “Where is Steve?”

There was a brief pause on the other line before Peggy answered, “Getting dressed. Would you like me to ask him call—oh, wait—he’s here. Steve, darling?” 

“I’m going to kill him,” Bucky told Natasha again in the muffled exchange of voices as Peggy handed the phone over to Steve and explained who was calling. 

“Talk to him first,” Natasha suggested mildly, though with less force than she had said before. 

“Buck?” Steve asked as he came on the line, “what’s going on? Are you alright?”

“What the hell did you do to him, Steve?” Bucky snapped at him, and he tapped the phone off speaker phone so he could have the satisfaction of yelling directly into it. 

“What—who?” Steve stammered at first, though he quickly grew more annoyed than upset. “Bucky, what is this about?”

“Tony, that’s who,” Bucky growled, “we just found him black-out drunk in a toilet at Harvelle’s. You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on now?”

“He—that’s not possible,” Steve told him, however weakly. “He said he—he’s at Mike’s, he’s working in the workshop, he can’t—”

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Bucky interrupted Steve’s attempts at denial, and instead demanded, “where are you?”

“I’m at home,” Steve answered without thinking, then thought to ask, “wait—where are you? Bucky? Bucky!”

Bucky threw his phone into the empty passenger seat. “I guess you’re meeting Dr. and Mrs. Rogers tonight,” he told Natasha with a wry smile. 

“Oh, goody,” she murmured down at Tony, combing his hair out of his eyes as he silently wept into her hip. 

*** 

It didn’t take ten minutes from the freeway to the Rogers’ house, and Bucky was about to turn into their neighborhood when he noticed a blur of motion coming after them. He paused a beat longer at the stop sign to turn and stare. 

“Is that Steve?” Natasha whispered, because although it looked like Steve, the man sprinting after them barefoot and dressed in little more than jeans and a tshirt in the freezing winter night must have been a hallucination. 

Tony choked on a silent sob in Natasha’s lap, drawing both their attention away from the running madman and back to the task at hand. 

“James, I think he’s saying Steve’s name,” Natasha told Bucky quietly, still gently cradling Tony’s head and rubbing his shoulders to let him know they were there. 

“I don't—” Bucky started to say, but there was a sudden hammering on the passenger side window that startled him silent again. It was Steve knocking on the window, loudly and adamantly, yelling at Bucky to open it up. 

Angrier now than before, Bucky applied the gas instead and sped off down the street, driving much too fast to Joseph and Sarah's house, leaving Steve on the curb to shout after them. 

“That wasn’t very smart,” Natasha commented dryly, turning in her seat to see that, sure enough, Steve was coming after them in a dead sprint. “I've never felt more like Jeff Goldblum in my life.” 

Bucky snorted and glanced at Steve through the rear view mirror, but the house was coming up before he had a chance to answer her. He pulled up into the driveway and had just stepped out when Steve caught up to them, running directly into Bucky and grabbing him by his jacket in an aggressive shake. 

“What do you—” 

“Take your hands off of me,” Bucky warned him, his voice cold and unwelcoming. 

Steve was panting hard in the cold winter air, his breath billowing between them and obscuring his face in the darkness. They stood in their stalemate for a beat of silence before Steve shoved him backwards to let him go. “You ever pull this shit again—” 

“—What shit!” Bucky yelled, gesturing at the car as if to indicate Tony. “Helping your husband when he's drunk himself half to death? While you're busy doing what, cavorting with Peggy?” 

“Steve?” a gentle voice called from the house, and Bucky turned to see Sarah standing in a warm robe and slippers in the doorway. “Bucky? What’s going on, why are you shouting?”

But Steve’s expression had shuttered in shock and he was staring at the car when he barely stammered “He what?” 

With two left feet and hands that were all thumbs, he made it to Natasha’s side to wrestle her door open. She must have had pity for him, because she helped open the door from her side. 

There, smaller than Steve ever remembered him, Tony lay curled up in the backseat with his face mostly hidden against Natasha’s body. But anyone could have seen his full body shivering, and even mostly concealed, Steve noticed how pale he had become. 

“Tony?” He called softly, and he leaned into the car to help Natasha unbuckle the seatbelts around him while Bucky told Sarah what was wrong. Tony hesitated at first, but he soon turned in his position to see Steve better. 

“You stink,” he rasped, the hurt and accusation as clear in his voice as the stench of alcohol on his breath. “Christ, you're so like him. How—”

“I'm sorry, Tony,” Steve whispered, not sure anymore what he was apologizing for, but that they were all equally important. Gently, he swept his arms under Tony to lift him out of the car, and he cradled Tony close to his chest, trying to keep him warm. But even in his arms Tony’s body shuddered and heaved with intermittent crying spells, silently weeping one moment and sobbing loudly into Steve’s shoulder the next. 

“Oh, Tony—” Sarah cried softly, already waiting impatiently to look him over. As soon as the door was shut behind them, she hurried to check his eyes and then his pulse, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. “What happened, dar—?”

She cut herself off abruptly as Tony whimpered and turned away from her, pressing his face more firmly against Steve’s chest. She fell back a step in case she was doing more harm than good, and instead she turned to Bucky and Natasha who were trailing behind her silently. 

“Has he had anything to eat, to drink? Any water?”

“Some water, barely,” Bucky replied at the same time as Natasha said, “No more than four ounces.”

“Put him down on the couch,” Sarah told her son, hurrying after Steve with a worried grimace. “He’s only been drinking, right?” she asked Bucky and Natasha again. “No other drugs?” 

“He drank until they had to cut him off,” Bucky told her, lingering in the doorway to stay out from underfoot. “If he took something else, Frank didn't see it.”

Steve sat Tony down in a corner of the couch where the pillows and armrest would help to support him. He was conscious but unresponsive, unwilling to acknowledge eye contact as if this family was the last people he wanted to face. Steve leaned in close to press a kiss against his temple and then quickly bundled him up in a blanket; he didn’t say anything about Tony’s clammy skin, or the stains and stench of sick on his clothes, but he brushed Tony’s damp hair away from his face with a gentle hand, whispered a promise to Tony that he was home, that he was safe, then crouched in front of him to unlace his boots. 

“Steve, please,” Sarah urged him aside impatiently. Unwilling to move too far away, Steve only shifted to his left, kneeling on the floor at Tony’s side so that he could keep his hands wrapped around Tony’s socked feet, rubbing them each in turn between his hands to warm Tony up without getting in his mom’s way. 

Around the two of them, Sarah directed Bucky and Natasha to their tasks with calculated efficiency. She had Bucky fetch her blood pressure cuff and Natasha a pitcher of water, and slowly but surely, Sarah was thankfully, gratefully, ruling out the worst of the symptoms. 

A gentle hand squeeze Steve’s shoulder and pulled his attention away from Tony’s grief. “Did you hear me, honey?” Sarah asked in a whisper. “It’s not alcohol poisoning. I think he’s in shock.”

Steve enjoyed one blissful, fleeting moment of relief before another world of concern came to the forefront. “What—he was in town, he’s been with Mike, he loves Mike, what could—”

“He was saying things in the car,” Natasha interjected loudly, and Steve looked up at her as if she was his salvation. “I think this was the day he first learned his father passed away.”

The door slammed shut behind them and Joseph’s heavy steps were heard coming to the living room. He took one look around the room—Tony limp and hiccuping through his tears on the couch, Sarah frozen midway through packing up her blood pressure cuff, and Steve kneeling at Tony’s feet; and Bucky and Natasha hovering in the sidelines—and seemed to grow several inches taller in his anger. 

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of them all, his eyes lingering on Tony’s unusual state. 

“Tony is not well,” Sarah told him—an obvious understatement, but it was all that needed to be said. “Bucky and Natasha heard where he was and helped him home.”

“Thank you,” Joseph said to them, sincere but with a palpable undercurrent of anger towards Bucky and Natasha. “Now, please leave. This is a private family matter.”

Bucky glared across at Steve and opened his mouth as if he meant to say something, but Natasha took him by the hand and started for the door. “We will visit in the morning,” she promised instead, speaking to Sarah as well as and Bucky. 

Joseph walked them out of the house and shut the door behind them, and he waited there. Sarah, listening for his steps and realizing what he meant, whispered something softly to Steve before joining Joseph. Together they walked to the kitchen and sat there quietly, waiting. 

*** 

In the relative privacy of the living room, Steve rose on his knees in front of Tony—he was mindful not to touch him, but he stayed close, waiting for any indication that Tony might want physical comfort. “Tony,” he whispered, “was Nat’s guess right?”

Tony didn’t say much—wouldn’t or couldn’t, Steve wasn’t sure—but the heaving sob he choked and coughed on felt like an affirmative. 

“I didn’t know he had passed, Tony. I’m sorry for your loss,” he whispered, reluctantly sinking down to sit on his heels in the hopes of not crowding him. But Tony, limp and unresponsive as he was, made a grab for Steve’s shoulder, and his fingers dug into Steve’s t-shirt in a desperate grip. 

Steve rose up on his knees immediately, and at the first offer of his open arms Tony fell forward into his embrace, trusting in the moment that Steve would catch him in his fall. There was no hesitation, no give; Steve closed his arms around him, holding him close and cradling the back of Tony’s head with a gentle hand, shielding him from the world around them to help Tony finally let go, to finally grieve. 

Folded safely into the refuge of Steve’s body, Tony could no longer contain himself. Every stuttering breath swelled and churned in his body as he wailed into Steve’s shoulder, his sobs tearing from his throat faster than he could breathe. Steve held him close and steady, whispering senseless words of comfort into Tony’s hair and assuring him that he wasn’t alone. 

“She left us,” he cried, hoarse and barely intelligible. “She left us because of him, because he wouldn’t stop—he never stopped, _never_ —I hate him, Steve: I hate him, I hate him—”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut against the raw heartache in Tony’s words. Where he had no words of comfort, Steve rocked with Tony gently, offering himself however he could. He rubbed soothing circles against Tony’s back and he hummed softly in sympathy, and through all of it, he never let up the pressure around Tony’s body, unwilling to let him go.

“Fuck him—fuck them, why—” a violent sob silenced him, his cries growing louder with every faltering breath, and when he spoke again it was with such anger that he was nearly shouting his rage over Steve’s shoulder. “Why was I not en—his business, his fuck—fucking _booze_ , his—his _women_ ,” he spat, clawing at Steve’s shirt as he clung to him in his stab of rage. “He ruined everything, and now he’s just gone—both gone,” he whimpered, “gone, and I couldn’t even say—couldn’t say anything—”

Steve pressed a kiss to the side of Tony’s head, lingering there and holding him that much closer, desperate to show Tony how he wasn’t alone, how his family wasn’t all gone, and he shushed him gently, humming deep in his chest in an instinctive attempt to soothe Tony. 

“You’re not alone,” he murmured when Tony’s words and cries had quieted to wet, hitching whimpers, “we’ll figure it out, Tony, we’ll find a way. You’ll always have us—you have a family here, and we love you. But now—do you think,” Steve stammered, struggling with how to change the subject without sounding dismissive. “Do you think you could drink some water, Tony? I—please?”

If he had been awkward, Tony didn’t seem to notice; he didn’t say a word, but he jerked his head downwards in a silent agreement, and Steve immediately reached for a half-filled glass left near them and held it up for Tony. Neither of them was too eager to untangle, and they maneuvered carefully until Tony all but sat in Steve’s lap with Steve’s arms wrapped protectively around him. When he finished the glass, Steve poured him another. They sat together in a meditative silence, unaware of who or what passed around them, until Tony’s eyes seemed to catch on a detailed he had not yet noticed. 

“Steve,” he murmured on a short exhale, “your feet. They’re bleeding?”

Steve shrugged at the question, pressing a kiss to the crown of Tony’s head instead. “Not anymore,” he promised. “It looks worse than it is.”

“Were you chasing Bucky’s car earlier?” he wondered next, looking down at his empty glass instead because it was somehow easier to speak when he wasn’t looking at Steve’s face. Steve hummed in the affirmative, as if it was a matter of no consequence. “Barefoot?”

“Come on,” Steve said instead, re-adjusting his arms around Tony’s body and moving to stand with Tony still cradled in his arms. “You think you could sleep?”

“Maybe,” Tony hedged carefully, and he valiantly tried not to let his lips quirk up in a smile as he added, “I can walk, you know.”

“But you seemed so concerned about my feet,” Steve countered, only half-joking. “How else can I show you how fine they are?”

“You make a good case,” he muttered, but as they reached the door of the living room, he suddenly stirred. “Please?”

Steve didn’t argue, and gently placed Tony on his feet again. But he offered his hand to him, unwilling to let go of Tony so soon. Tony glanced down at his hand, puzzled, before taking one step closer to Steve and cautiously taking his hand. Steve closed his hand more firmly around Tony’s and brought it up to his lips, kissing the back of his knuckles tenderly before leading them into the kitchen. 

Joseph was standing at the sink with his back to them when they walked in, but Sarah jumped up from her seat at the table and ran around to greet them. 

“Tony, oh, darling,” Sarah breathed as soon as they stepped in, and at the first indication that her touch was welcome, she enveloped Tony in a fierce hug. “My sweetheart, I am so sorry for your loss.” 

Tony leaned into her embrace and wrapped an arm around her, taking comfort in her gentle words without once letting go of Steve’s hand, his anchor in this storm. 

“Pops?” he heard Steve ask, and he opened his eyes to peek over Sarah’s shoulder to see what might have caused the confusion in Steve’s voice. 

Joseph didn’t say anything to acknowledge he had heard Steve’s question, except that he turned to Steve and gave him a curt nod before going back to what he had been doing: emptying every bottle of beer, wine, and liquor down the drain. 

“We’re going to bed,” Steve told Sarah quietly after a stunned silence. “Could one of you please get Roosevelt? He’s home alone.”

“Of course, baby,” Sarah promised him, and she gave them each a kiss on the cheek goodnight. “Take water with you—drink as much of it as you can, you understand?”

“Yes, mom,” Steve sighed, reacting on a lifetime of _yes, mom_ conversations. But as promised he filled two glasses of water and handed one to Tony and took one for himself, and together they climbed the stairs to the bedrooms upstairs. But when they got to Steve’s childhood room, he hesitated outside the door and gently tugged Tony back into the hallway. 

“Could you—” he tried to say, but then pressed his lips in a frustrated line before trying again. “Could you wait here, please? And hold this,” he added, handing Tony his own glass of water. 

Tony watched him, mildly confused, but he stood there as asked and watched Steve walk into the bedroom first and close the door behind him. It didn’t take more than a minute for him to come back, and he took his glass back from Tony before reaching for his hand again, welcoming him into the room. 

Memories and snapshots of Steve’s childhood greeted them both, but this time Peggy was nowhere to be seen. Her photographs had been removed from the wall, the journals dedicated to her put away, and the framed photo on the nightstand had been turned face down, its grand display of delighted faces erased. 

Tony sat down on the bed to absorb the unexpected changes, while Steve made his way to the dresser, digging for sleep clothes that Tony would be comfortable in and clothes that hopefully would still fit him. 

“Don’t laugh,” Steve warned him as he came back to the bed and handed Tony a pair of clean boxers and a worn-in dove grey t-shirt featuring Wood’s iconic _American Gothic_ across the front. “It was a souvenir.”

“Not laughing,” Tony promised as evenly as he could, and he looked at the t-shirt for some time before reaching back to grab his own sweater and pull it up over his head. 

Steve turned his back to give Tony as much privacy as he could, digging in the dresser again for somewhat bigger clothes. In the end he had to settle for a pair of boxers that would hopefully not strangle his legs and an old blue t-shirt that was now so threadbare it wouldn’t feel any different stretched as it would lose. He changed where he stood, with his back to Tony—after all, there was nothing there that Tony hadn’t seen already. 

“You weren’t joking,” were the first words Tony said when Steve turned around to face him, and Steve frowned a little to express his confusion on his way back to the bed. “These clothes,” Tony explained, and even though he was already under the covers he gestured down at the t-shirt he was wearing that fit him perfectly fine. “They’re more my size than anything I’ve been pulling out of your side of the closet at home.”

“I mean, I’m no genius,” Steve drawled, and he pulled the duvet back enough to climb in under it with him, “but I like to think I can estimate measurements at a glance. You know, given what I do.”

“If you want to be rational about it,” Tony muttered under his breath. He turned in bed a little restlessly—there was technically enough space for them both in the full bed, but it was cramped, and he looked unsure of how close was too close. Steve turned on his side and settled it for him by reaching across for Tony, pulling him in close before rolling onto his back to let Tony sprawl against his side comfortably. 

“I’ll be here, Tony,” Steve promised quietly against Tony’s hair, trailing his fingertips in lazy, hypnotic patterns over Tony’s bicep. “If you wake up and want to talk, if you wake up and don’t want to be alone. Whatever you need, I’ll be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many apologies for the delay. I could blame it on many factors - I got a puppy dog, quarter is ending and ugh deadlines - but really, this chapter nearly ended me. I can only hope it was worth the wait! 
> 
> (In other news, ch. 10 is half done =D We're nearly there, folks!!)


	10. The Reception

Tony woke the next morning in a state of overwhelming tension, in a world so unsettled that a wrong breath or an untimely chill could tip him over the precipice and into a great fall. 

His eyes burst wide open and instinctively he latched onto the covers in a wild attempt at anchoring himself. But his hand didn’t reach the mattress; instead he found the firm slope of Steve’s shoulder, and it was enough to keep Tony steady long enough to take stock of his circumstances and understand the fear that had woken him. 

At some point in the night, his heroic partner had unfurled across their cramped bed. Like a great starfish, Steve and all his limbs consumed the majority of the bed, leaving a mere foot or so for Tony to cling to; it was this precarious position of dangling head-first off the mattress that had startled Tony out of his deep sleep in a heartbeat. 

He only had enough time to reach down with a hand to brace for the inevitable, and with a yelp and a clattering thump he dropped, tumbling to the floor in a roll that had him knocking right into Steve’s desk. 

The commotion moved Steve in a feeble stir, and he moaned groggily in question. When that didn’t seem to provide satisfactory answers, Tony watched Steve pat at the empty mattress with the hand that had been closest to him, presumably searching for Tony, until Steve felt it necessary to lift his head and look around. 

In his sleepy confusion, Steve frowned down at Tony where he sat in a little heap against the desk. “Mmny?” he mumbled with a mouth that seemed altogether uncooperative. “W’tre you d’n th’r?”

“Gravity,” Tony deadpanned. 

Steve hummed in sympathy, and seemingly satisfied that Tony wasn’t running away, he turned his hand palm-up in offering. “C’m b’ck?”

Despite the urge to roll his eyes, Tony couldn’t resist Steve’s sleepy self, with his hooded eyes and that tousled, golden hair framing his slack face in wild, unpredictable patterns. There was a serenity to him that Tony had never had a chance to see before, and it beckoned him, luring him back to bed faster than Tony would like to admit.

He climbed back under the duvet, and Steve turned towards him with a happy moan, tangling his legs with Tony’s and wrapping both arms around his body, drawing him in close with a greedy eagerness that Tony hadn’t anticipated. He was just settling in to sleep again when, on a final little tug closer, Steve’s boney wrist caught on a tender spot, and they were both surprised to hear Tony hiss in pain. 

“What—Tony?” Steve mumbled, awake at once, but far more confused. “Did I hurt you?” 

“No, no it's not—I think it's just from yesterday, it's nothing,” Tony soothed gently, turning in Steve’s arms again the way Steve had been trying to position him so they could get some sleep. But Steve wouldn't stop frowning, and he ran his hands gently down Tony’s side to see where the pain was. 

When Steve next applied careful pressure, Tony did better with concealing the pain: he made no sound; he even smiled. But his smile was tight and uncomfortable, and his breath escaped him in a quiet huff. 

“What is this?” Steve asked, sitting up in bed and pushing the covers aside to see Tony better, his hand curled protectively around Tony’s side. “May I—?”

Tony rolled his eyes but he nodded, and before he could change his mind Steve swept his hand under Tony’s shirt, pushing it up and out of the way. 

There, from the bottom of his ribcage down to his hip, and again closer to the center of his stomach, were two broad, purpling bruises. Steve brushed his hand over them without applying any pressure, growing more upset about the size and severity of the bruises the more he looked at them. 

“Hey—hey, Steve? It's just a couple punches,” Tony whispered, trying to push his t-shirt down to cover himself as inconspicuously as possible. “I was drunk and looking for trouble, it's okay.”

“It is _not_ okay. Who did this to you?” Steve demanded through gritted teeth. He obligingly removed his hand from Tony’s body to let Tony push the shirt down, but he couldn't bring himself to look away. “How many are a couple, Tony?”

“Two, I think,” Tony said quietly. “No harm done: I slept fine, I can breathe fine—the bruises will fade in a week or two, don't worry.” 

It took time, but eventually Steve's rage cooled off as he sat there, watching Tony with his hand splayed over Tony’s abdomen, as if seeing Tony smiling up at him without signs of pain and feeling the uninterrupted rise and fall of his breathing was enough assurance that Tony wasn't lying about this. 

“I am sorry you went through yesterday alone,” Steve said quietly, making a concerted effort to express his words without questioning Tony's judgement. “I am sorry I didn't ...that I didn't notice.”

“You thought I was in the workshop,” Tony reminded him gently. “That was the point. It isn't your fault.” 

“But you said lies are meant to be easy for the recipient,” Steve remembered, and he wore a little confused frown as if it was a math problem he was still struggling to solve. “Who was this easy for?”

“Sometimes…” Tony started to say, but then he paused and tried to find another way of saying it. “People lie to themselves all the time. There is no easier way to believe a lie than to convince the world around you of that lie first.” 

“If you say so,” Steve said quietly. For lack of anything meaningful to say, he slid down in the bed to stretch out on his side next to Tony, settling in on his own pillow with his hand still protectively covering Tony’s bruised side. 

“Alright, morose Joe, how about we go back to sleep?” Tony suggested and made a point of settling in comfortably on his back and ignoring the way Steve was watching him. “No, stop it. Close your face. I can feel you watching—just, just turn the other way if you’ve forgotten how to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” Steve complained with a huff. “You can’t tell me you lied so you could run away to get yourself drunk and hurt and then expect me to snooze.”

“Then go read the Constitution or something,” Tony whined right back, refusing to open his eyes and acknowledge Steve’s look. “This isn’t about you, Steve, it’s about me: me who is tired, me who wants to nap, but can’t, because you’re like a jungle cat—”

“Did you recognize them?” Steve interrupted him to ask. “Were they from Dobbs Mill?”

“Go to sleep,” Tony sighed with a forced patience. 

“No,” Steve groused. “You can’t make me. Did you recognize them?”

“Go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Then take a lap around town,” Tony suggested sarcastically. “Skydive, snorkel, take up knitting—”

“I know how to knit, I like my feet on the ground, _and_ there’s a blizzard going on outside,” Steve countered every suggestion before going back to his own point. “I’m worried about you.”

Tony frowned a little before finally giving in and looking at Steve. “I definitely took you for an adrenaline junkie.”

“Within reason,” Steve allowed, a small smile tugging on his expression. “I’ll take a motorcycle over jumping out of a functioning airplane any day of the week.”

“What about mountain climbing? You’ve got great shoulders,” Tony pointed out with an affectionate smile. 

Steve blinked at him in surprise, a faint blush rising in his cheeks at the compliment. “You think so?”

“I do,” Tony whispered huskily, “they’re firm, they’re broad; but do you know my favorite thing about them?’

At a loss and out of breath, Steve could only shake his head slowly, watching Tony with an eager expectation. 

“The way they feel moving against my body, under my hands… how they swell with power and relax with your breath,” he murmured, watching Steve from under his eyelashes, and when Tony was sure Steve was hanging on his every word, he added, “when you’re _asleep_.”

Steve’s face fell. Before Tony could gleefully revel in his own genius, Steve snatched up his own pillow and smacked Tony in the head. “Damnit, Tony! You know what? Fine,” he huffed, sitting up to swing his legs out of bed, out of patience with this whole situation. “Fine. Blizzard it is. You just lie there in pain—”

But Tony whined as Steve started to get out of bed, and it was his turn to shuffle closer and reach a hand out. “No, wait,” he grumbled, albeit reluctantly. “Stay?”

“Why? You won’t talk to me,” Steve snapped, already pulling socks on his cold feet. 

“Because,” Tony started to say, but he took a while to decide on his words. “I’m tired, and I will sleep better if you’re here. Please?”

Steve let out a soft breath where he might have sighed earlier, but there was no more fight in him for that kind of argument. He stepped out of his socks and came back to bed, crawling under the blanket and turning on his side so he could tangle their legs together again and draw Tony into the protective cradle of his body. 

“Alright, Tony,” he finally whispered into Tony’s hair, nuzzling in and breathing him in deeply. “We’ll do it your way. Close your eyes, go to sleep.”

*** 

Some hours were spent sleeping in, a few more lying awake in silence side by side, until it was nearly noon when Steve and Tony finally walked downstairs to rejoin the world. 

“Mom?” Steve called into the empty house, trailing Tony to the cupboards where he was digging for glasses for them both. One after another Tony filled their glasses with water and handed one to Steve before drinking his own. Steve thanked him with a smile, and quietly asked, “Where could they be? Did we have plans?”

“She was saying Betty and Jackie would be helping her with the food today,” Tony thought out loud, “maybe they’re doing it at home?”

“Less to carry,” Steve agreed. “Do you have your suit here or there?”

“There,” Tony said as he finished his glass, and he handed it to Steve to wipe clean since he was already doing his own, and he leaned into Steve’s side to rest his cheek on Steve’s shoulder while he waited Steve to finish. “I got yours dry cleaned by th—” Tony paused when he heard Steve’s sigh of complaint. “You’re welcome?”

“I don’t want to wear a suit—and I know which one it is,” Steve grumbled, “it’s the striped grey one, isn’t it?”

“Blue one,” Tony corrected gently, “mom wanted the grey one, but it’s so...”

“Formal,” Steve filled in as he finally straightened, putting the glasses away in the drying rack. “It’s her favorite, but I don’t get it—the whole waistcoat thing, that’s just one more layer to spill my guac on, what’s the point?”

Tony snickered and shook his head at Steve’s arguably rational protest, and he reached up to pat Steve on the chest in solidarity. “I got your back: you’re wearing the blue. Casual and flattering.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said with a smile. “Were you able to find a suit you liked?”

“No,” Tony answered easily, returning Steve's smile. “I’ve got a suit, I’ll just wear that.”

Steve frowned and nudged him a little, playful but mindful of Tony’s bruised side. “Hey, don’t—that wasn’t a money decision, was it? I don’t want you to miss out—”

“On a suit? No,” Tony assured him with a laugh. “I’ll survive with one less suit, Steve.”

“It’s our last night together,” Steve said in a quiet voice, but he couldn’t quite seem to finish his thought that easily. “Whatever you want for today, Tony. If you—if there is anything you want, or need for later, I’m okay with it. I want you to be ...you know?”

“Happy?” Tony guessed, and when Steve nodded he could only smile back at him. “I will be, Steve. Tonight will be good, it’s—um, what you—you know, you, your parents, and Bucky and Nat did for me yesterday? This is the least I can do.”

Steve watched him with a small frown, clearly wanting to argue against something Tony had said, but instead he nodded again. “Then let’s head over there,” he decided at last, and reluctantly he stepped away from the intimate little space they had made. But Tony reached for his hand before he got too far away, and hand in hand they went back upstairs to get dressed for the walk to the yellow house. 

*** 

The walk to the yellow house passed by in comfortable silence. With only their gloves between their hands, they wandered through the winding neighborhood streets to their hill, pausing here and there to point out the houses with particularly inspired holiday decorations. Rather than taking the shortcut through grassy side of the hill to the side of the house, they walked up the gravel driveway under a canopy of snow-covered evergreens. 

They found their little yellow house had been unexpectedly dressed for the holiday. White, twinkling lights outlined the planes and angles of the roof and the porch, and in the second floor windows hung flower boxes decorated with sprigs of greenery, frosted pine cones, and vibrant clusters of holly. The pillars of the porch were bundled up in rich evergreen garlands and lights, and on the front door hung a wreath of bold red and golden ribbons, lush greenery, and polished red ornaments of all sizes. The wreath was so big it almost reached the welcome mat, and at the heart of the wreath hung a long, oval chalkboard, where Steve and Tony’s names had been written down in beautiful, sweeping block letters. It was not until they were climbing the steps that they noticed there were other messages written on the chalkboard around their names, and that a little canvas pouch with red and white chalk had been left by the door for visitors to continue adding their well wishes. 

“Did you know...” Steve murmured, still staring around at their house in wonder. Beside him, Tony was no less moved, and he only shook his head in response. 

Their reverie was abruptly interrupted when from around the back of the house Teddy came sprinting for them, knocking into Tony’s shins in his excitement; the big station dalmation Ava trailed at a much more subdued trot behind him. 

“Hey buddy,” Tony cooed in delighted, crouching down to ruffle his puppy in greeting. “I'm sorry, little guy, I’ll never leave you like that again buddy, I promise—such a good boy, what a good boy!”

They heard Sarah’s voice calling them from somewhere inside the house, and Tony got back up to follow Steve into the house. Ava walked more patiently at Steve’s side while Teddy took off like a shot in his excitement, and they paused briefly in the living room to say good morning to Sam and Natasha who were putting together decorative vases of greenery and boughs of holly. Their voices must have carried because from the kitchen came shouts of excitement and the delighted voices of two women. Both of them soon showed themselves, running out in their aprons and trailing whirlwinds of flour behind them. 

Sam’s mom, Betty, was the first to reach them—with an excited series of hellos she ran up to Tony and bundled him up in an eager hug. “Why, if my little sugar cookie hasn’t done well for himself with you—” she crowed in delight and smacked loud kisses on Tony’s cheeks. 

“Bee—” Steve pouted, but Betty only reached over to smack him on the arm ( _hard_ ). 

“Don’t try me right now,” she warned him, “you’re in the dog house, Mister, running away like you did.”

“Wait—” Tony tried to interrupt, but Betty silenced him with a single look of disapproval. 

“Now, you’re still in my good graces,” she reminded him, “and I got biscuits coming out of the oven in two minutes.”

Tony blinked, considered his options and looked at Steve. Steve shook his head at him and quietly admitted, “I’d give you up for biscuits. It’s only fair.”

“Tony, come here!” Jackie laughed, coming around and sneaking a hug from him while Betty gave Steve a piece of her mind. “I missed you, honey—and your hair, my god—”

“I told you it grows like a weed,” Tony grinned at her, obligingly bowing his head a little so she could run her fingers through it and make an opinion. 

“Maybe we should give you a trim,” she suggested after a few moments. “It looks fine, but Sarah said you’re wearing a suit tonight? We should thin it a little, make it more manageable.”

“Whatever you say,” Tony promised, happy to stay where he was while she continued combing through his hair. “The house looks incredible, have you guys been doing this all morning?” he added, projecting his question to all of them. 

“Sarah started talking about it last week, she organized it,” Jackie told him, “but the lighting was all Sam’s idea.”

“Oh no—no,” Sam quickly interrupted, shaking his head when Tony looked at him with a happy smile. “No, everyone off duty pitched in—and it wasn’t a big deal, we just drove the truck up and pinned up the lights from the ladder. Didn’t take half an hour.”

“It looks incredible, the house is beautiful,” Tony said in his gratitude. “I can't believe Sarah didn’t say anything about any of this.” 

“That’s how you keep a surprise a surprise, sugar!” Betty laughed, and she gave Steve’s cheek an affectionate pinch before leading the way back to the kitchen. “Unless you got somewhere to be, I want you with me—I’ve heard so much about you, and not a single soul thought to bring you to see me! I’m about to take offense, you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tony answered immediately, and after a quick trade-off of the apron and promising to check in with Jackie in an hour to fix his hair, he left Steve and Jackie in the living room with the decoration team to go help Betty in the kitchen. 

She was already pulling a large tray of biscuits out of the oven when he got there, “Now, Cookie tells me you studied at MIT?”

Tony came to a halt halfway to her side of the kitchen and had to think that sentence over carefully before opening his mouth. “I’m sorry, wait, stop,” he said slowly, “ _Cookie?_ ”

“Yeah, he—Steve,” she clarified with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t you look so gleeful, sugar. He didn’t have a name for weeks when he was born, and there’s only so long you can call a child Baby Rogers before it gets old,” she explained, and then with a conspiratorial glance she quietly asked him, “Did he ever tell you he was nearly a William?”

“He was?” Tony asked just as quietly, drawn closer by the force of his curiosity until he was hovering at the counter beside Betty. 

“He was,” she said and waved her oven mitt in the direction of a cupboard behind Tony. “You got a basket or something we can put these in, sugar?” Tony got busy digging out the basket and getting it ready as Betty continued her story. “About a month before Steve was due, William, Sarah’s father, was in an accident. She worried so much they had to hospitalize her—and she was ready to pop. Didn’t help that her father was dropping hints all over the place that they name the baby William neither; he was so sure he wouldn't make it.”

Tony slid over the basket with a green kitchen towel folded into it for the biscuits, then quietly prompted her on to continue. “But he’s—he was fine?”

“He lost his left leg at the knee,” she told him with a small frown, “but mostly he recovered otherwise. He lived to see his grandson born; and now,” she added cheerfully, “he’s lived long enough to see him married! He’s coming in from Boston to see you.”

“He—he, uh,” Tony stammered, suddenly very aware that Steve was not in the room with him. “He, he is what?”

“You didn’t know?” Betty asked, and Tony was clearly at a loss. Steve _had_ said something about a grandfather, but somehow it wasn’t a reality until this moment, and he found himself staring at Betty in poorly contained bewilderment. 

“Cookie, get in here!” she called when Tony hadn’t answered for long enough, and it didn’t take Steve long to poke his head in the kitchen. “You didn’t tell Tony about your grandfather visiting?”

“It—not in so many words,” Steve shrugged a little, unsure of why that mattered until he glanced over at Tony’s pale face. “Hey—Tony? You alright?”

“He, uh, is he going to be okay about the—” Tony asked in an uneven voice, and he tried to gesture between himself and Steve in a way that hopefully spelled out _fraud_. “You know, with—with us?”

“Sugar, we’ve all known Steve’s orientation since he declared his love to one of my waiters sixteen years ago,” Betty laughed, waving off Tony’s concern. “He knows you’re an Anthony and not an Antonia.” 

“I—wait,” Tony finally had to put his hands up, because all the moving parts of this conversation had to stop for just one minute to let him catch up. “ _That’s_ how you came out, fourteen year old you told a stranger you loved him?”

Steve was trying to level a reproachful look at Betty, but he was blushing too hard and she was laughing too hard for it to get any traction. He sniffed at the memory, and explained himself with as much dignity as he could muster. “Ben Turner wasn’t a stranger, he was the running back of the high school football team—and,” he added, because it mattered, “he wore a leather jacket.”

“You were really swinging for the fences there, champ,” Tony crowed, straining himself to the point of a small cough to keep from laughing. “Did you ask him out?”

“He switched tables with another waiter,” Steve admitted wryly, and just like that, Tony didn’t look like he wanted to laugh anymore. “School was ...a lot of fun after that.”

“His loss,” Tony promised, making his way over to Steve and kissing his cheek. “Chin up—how’s everything looking out there?”

“They’re doing fine without me. Mom ran home to get a second punchbowl, and Bucky won’t come down from the loft to talk to me,” Steve summarized dryly. “How’s the questioning going?”

“More like story-time, for now,” Tony answered in a stage whisper, and Betty laughed from where she was busy but eavesdropping at the stove. “If they don’t really need you out there right now, could you take over here?”

Steve frowned and glanced Betty’s way before nodding in answer. “Sure—why, are you going somewhere?”

“The workshop—promise,” he added quickly at Steve’s look of concern. “That’s all I’m doing, I’ll be back in an hour, two tops.”

“Tony, the guests will be arriving at four,” Steve warned him, but Tony was already pushing the apron into his hands and hurrying out of the kitchen. “Please don’t be late, Tony.”

Betty walked around the counter to stand next to Steve, and they both watched Tony take leave of everyone (including Bucky up in the loft) before rushing out to the workshop. 

“What do you think he’s got going on out there?” she wondered. 

“No idea,” Steve sighed, but then he tried to smile when he looked down at her again. “Bee, I’m sorry I was away for so long.” 

“Well, you came back, baby. That’s all that matters,” she said gently, rubbing soothing circles across his back to comfort him. “Now, how about we put you and your mopey feelings to good use?”

*** 

With Mike’s help, it took Tony less than an hour to finish up and get dropped off back at the yellow house. In his absence, the house had completed its transformation for the reception: beautiful vases and arrangements of various greenery, holly, and lights decorated the grand room, and tables and seats had been brought out to accommodate dozens upon dozens of platters and guests. 

This time when he walked in there were neither familiar faces nor dogs to greet him, but he could hear excited chatter and laughter from a distance. He followed the cheerful sounds to the kitchen. 

There was a crowd of people around the island counter, jeering and laughing at each other, while Sarah and Jackie sat comfortably at the breakfast nook, a safe distance from the madhouse at the counter, happily laughing and whispering between themselves. 

It wasn’t until Tony was close enough to peek over Bucky’s shoulder that he realized they were all kneading dough—each with a different technique, each at a different speed. Betty, seemingly finished, had a medium ball of dough tightly wrapped in plastic in front of her while everyone else was racing for second place. 

Sarah shifted down the cushioned bench in the nook and urged Tony to come sit beside her. He happily obliged, and was soon pulled into a gentle hug. 

“How are you, darling?” she asked gently, rubbing the heel of her palm in slow, comforting circles across his back. “If this is too much today—”

“I'm alright, mom,” he promised her and gave her a smile. Then, a little more casually, he leaned in and asked, “What’s going on?” 

“Rita,” Sarah said, gesturing to the woman standing to Betty’s right, “Sam’s older sister, allegedly heard Betty praise Steve for kneading the rye dough. So she challenged him,” she drawled in amusement, clearly trying not to laugh, “then people started trickling in to compete, and now Betty’s got an army of pasta makers working harder than a paid staff ever would.” 

“Rita is actually in the lead,” Jackie told him, “Sam’s se—oh, wait,” she paused and they all stretched in their seats to watch Sam wrap his dough up in plastic with practiced ease. “They’re tied now,” she corrected. “Steve’s not doing so bad—but Natasha, I think she’s third.”

“Steve’s ahead, he got two loaves out of that sourdough,” Sarah argued on her son’s behalf, and when Jackie only agreed she easily changed the subject to something more important. “Tony, honey, where did you go? Is everything alright?”

“Have you eaten?” Jackie asked, too, pushing the overloaded bread basket to him along with a large plate of butter and various marmalades. Sarah nodded at once, looking grateful for Jackie’s suggestion and she pushed the basket and plates closer to Tony; she didn’t say anything, but the look she gave him made it clear there were no arguments to be made. 

“I thought of a use for Mike’s pallets,” Tony told them as he buttered up a biscuit and considered his marmalade options. “If—you know, if your dad—Steve’s grandpa—in case he is in a wheelchair, I thought maybe the stairs to the house,” he trailed off with an uncertain shrug, not quite sure how to phrase it.

“You,” Sarah said in quiet disbelief, not quite sure she was putting Tony’s words together correctly. “Did you build something for Papa’s wheelchair?”

“The porch goes around the whole house,” Tony pointed out in his defense, “I thought a ramp would be helpful?”

“You built a ramp for Papa’s wheelchair in forty-five minutes,” Sarah summarized slowly. Tony stared at her stunned expression, and he was just about to say how it wasn’t permanent, that they could dismantle it easily to replace with something less rushed without damaging the house, when Sarah reached for him and pulled him in for a fierce hug, holding him desperately close and pressing a kiss to the side of his head. 

“Mom?” Steve called from the counter, and he stepped away from his wrapped up dough almost unnoticed by the rest to come see what was going on. “Mom, are you alright?” 

Sarah nodded vigorously in the affirmative, and eventually she eased up on the hug to let Tony go. “Thank you, Tony,” she said finally, brushing her fingers affectionately through his hair to set it right again after her sudden hug. “If it was anybody else, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Steve’s expression quirked in curiosity, and he looked from Sarah and Jackie’s similarly stunned expressions before finally giving up and outright asking Tony, “What happened?”

“Betty said—well, no, I assumed,” Tony corrected himself quickly, “that your grandpa was in a wheelchair, and since Mike had pallets lying around taking up space, I thought maybe a ramp would—” 

He stopped talking the moment Steve’s curiosity flickered and died, so Tony cleared his throat and changed tact. “I, you know, I was just about to tell mom it’s easily dismantled—it’s actually pretty neat, I—”

Steve cupped his face with steady, gentle hands and kissed him quiet. 

“Thank you, Tony,” he murmured against Tony’s lips as they naturally eased apart, and Tony stared up after Steve as if he wasn’t sure he had heard right. The absurdity of it almost made Steve laugh, and he leaned in to press a second kiss to Tony’s forehead. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he chided mildly, smiling down at Tony. 

Tony blinked up at him in confusion, and it took some time before he could manage to ask, “Like what?”

“Like you’re the one who’s grateful,” Steve replied patiently, “like it’s news somehow to hear how amazing you are.”

“No! Hold it right there kiddo,” Jackie interrupted and got up from her side of the table. She patted Steve gently on the shoulder to push him aside, stepped between them, then urged Tony up. “I know where that talk will lead, and we have work to do: Tony needs a haircut, Steve smells like gluten—”

“I love gluten,” Tony announced dumbly even as Jackie led him away from the table, and both Sarah and Jackie laughed. 

“I know,” Jackie consoled him kindly, leading him along in the direction of the master bath. 

Steve watched him go with a wry expression that threatened to become a pout when Sarah delicately cleared her throat. 

“Keep it together, Steve,” she teased him when he spared a glance her way. “You can stand to be without him, can’t you?”

With a sullen expression and more gravity than either of them had expected, Steve shrugged to himself. “I don’t know, mom. Maybe I did, before, but now? I don’t know.” 

*** 

By the time Tony had showered and dressed to join them again, an hour had passed, their friends had excused themselves to go get ready, and the Rogers were not alone in the grand room. Tony hesitated briefly in the entryway as he watched Sarah and Joseph speaking to an old man in a wheelchair. Even though they were both speaking loudly to be heard by the older man, Tony couldn't make anything out over his pounding heartbeat. And as if his nerves weren't bad enough as it were, he felt increasingly aware of the pitiful state of his old jeans and t-shirt. An introduction in his clothes would surely be disastrous. 

But before he could beat a retreat to change into better clothes, Joseph called his name and beckoned him closer. 

“Sweetheart,” Sarah smiled as soon as she saw him, and she got up to meet Tony halfway to walk him over. “Papa, this is Steve’s husband, Tony Edwards,” she annunciated loudly and with care. “He brought Steve back home.”

That William looked nothing like Sarah was Tony’s first impression, neither in her delicate features nor in her cheerful disposition. He peered up at Tony suspiciously and for a long time he said nothing, until Tony almost wondered if William had elected to forget about him entirely. Instead of saying hello or introducing himself, the old man brushed a hand over the thick tartan tucked around his legs, picking at some imaginary lint. 

“I heard you built that ramp,” he eventually muttered, reluctantly looking at Tony again. “How old are you?”

Tony glanced from Joseph to Sarah, a little unsure of where the line of questioning was going, but he didn’t hesitate too long. “I am twenty-two years old, sir.”

“Tony! There you are.” 

Tony looked up to see Steve walking in from the kitchen with Teddy trotting by his side. He was already wearing his suit and tie, and he had combed his hair back, and the whole transformation was so unexpected Tony couldn’t help but stare, shamelessly drinking in the sight of him. Intuitively, he reached for Steve’s hand as the man walked around the couch, reeling him in for a chaste kiss. 

“You look incredible,” Tony murmured against his chin when they slipped apart, and he felt more than saw Steve’s lips quirk up in a pleased smile. But when he leaned back enough to see him, there was a tension in Steve’s expression Tony recognized as insecurity. 

With some serious effort Tony shook himself sober for long enough to give Steve a more critical once-over. He ran his hands down the arms of Steve's blue suit jacket, slipped his hands under it to tug and tuck Steve’s white dress shirt better into place, then did quick work of undoing the tie. 

“You’re too tall for the Windsor,” he said quietly as he slipped the red silk through his fingers and Steve’s collar, tying it with practiced ease. “Stick to the Shelby.”

Steve glanced down at himself as Tony settled the knot, looking relieved after the whole process. “Not that I can see a difference,” he admitted with a little shrug, “but whatever you say. What do you think, papa?” he added a little more loudly, stealing one last look of Tony before smiling at his grandpa. 

“You look like the flag,” William told him without irony, and Tony quickly looked down at his feet to keep from snickering. “And I think Tony is a good young man.”

“Of that there is no doubt,” Joseph agreed, reaching to give Tony an affectionate squeeze of his shoulder. “Now, before the masses arrive, let's get a family picture.”

“Pops—” Steve started to complain just as Tony patted at his t-shirt with both hands and said, “I'm not even dressed, I can't—” 

“When did you two become such naysayers,” Sarah sighed, and both Tony and Steve fell quiet. “Now, get over here, please.” 

She maneuvered William and his wheelchair closer to the fireplace as the boys came over, Tony coaxing Teddy along to get into the photo with them. Steve joined in to stand behind Sarah and Tony, draping an arm around each of them. But when Joseph came back with the camera, Steve perked up with a quiet chuckle rumbling in his chest. 

“Is that my old Polaroid?” 

“That it is, son,” he said with a straight face, then urged them to stand closer together. He counted down from three before he took the picture, but before he could take a second one Steve reached out his hand. 

“—Here, pops, get in here and let me try that,” he asked, but rather than switch places with his dad, Steve got down on one knee and turned the Polaroid on them for a group selfie. 

“Kids these days, Sarah. Turning the camera around, can you believe it?” Joseph muttered to Sarah with a shake of his head, but for once he sounded amused in his grumbling and Sarah simply laughed.

“We’re about as outdated as that technology, Joe, it’s not in our interest to get upset about them finding new applications for it.”

“If you two don't mind, we’re trying to take a picture here,” Steve drawled, feigning an air of exaggerated impatience. 

It took a few tries, but eventually they got a clear picture of all of them well in the frame and smiling. Sarah and Joseph excused themselves soon after that for a quick trip home to get changed, leaving Steve and Tony alone with Teddy and Steve’s grandfather. 

“Would you like anything to drink, sir?” Tony asked with the same careful enunciation the rest of the family used. “Anything to eat?” 

“I'll get him a beer and one of the platters,” Steve said to Tony and went to the kitchen. 

“He could choose hims—” Tony started to protest, but Steve was already halfway to the kitchen and Tony wasn't going to yell in front of William. He cleared his threat then and looked down at the old man with an awkward smile, struggling to find any words to say. 

“You look familiar,” William muttered, peering up at Tony. “Most of your kind do, I suppose. Never thought we'd have a greaser in the family.”

“ _Greaser?_ ” Tony stammered, more surprised than offended. Of all the reasons to be disliked, passing as Italian-American hadn't even been on his radar. 

“It makes no difference now,” William sighed, as if shrugging his old thought off. “Did in my day. We was all Catholic, but not the same. Not until John F. Kennedy; good number of your kind voted then. Good people. You know Kennedy is the only President to earn a Pulitzer?” he suddenly added then, the old sour lines of his face perking up in a grin. “He sure is—and still is!” 

Tony returned the smile somewhat stiffly, but he pulled one of the many decorated chairs over to sit beside William. “You remember JFK?”

“Remember him? I voted for him!” William guffawed, not without pride. 

“Papa telling you about his civil rights days?” Steve guessed as he joined them again, pulling a little side table over to set the meat and cheese platter down for his grandpa. 

“Civil rights days?” Tony echoed, and he made himself useful by opening the bottle Steve had brought out with his class ring. 

“Out on the Commons,” William told him, a new energy rising in his quiet voice as the happy memories came to him. “I heard Dr. King a few times, before he’d graduated. I’ll never forget. He weren’t afraid of anything—we knew then, those who weren’t moved by him weren’t right.”

“You— _in person?_ ” Tony squeaked in surprise, and next to him Steve burst out laughing with the shameless delight of a man whose ambush had paid off. “How—what was that like? Seeing Dr. King?”

“Oh, Tony? Dearest dove of mine?” Steve interrupted gently. “Remember our guests will start showing up soon. Didn’t you want to change?”

Tony mustered enough self-restraint to silence his recommendation to Steve of where to shove it, and instead he nodded in agreement. “I’ll be out in a minute,” he promised, and in his hurry to get it over with he nearly forgot his manners; he was two steps away before he turned on his heel and smiled politely at them both. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“We’ll be right here,” Steve promised Tony innocently enough, and Tony turned to retreat to the bedroom before he did or said anything he might regret. But from the glass hall that connected the main structure to the master bedroom, Tony spotted their first guests. 

“Oh, cottontoes!” Tony called back into the house, already opening the door. “The Barneses and Natasha are here!”

“Come in—” Tony started to say, but he was cut off briefly when Jackie kissed him hello on the cheek. “I’ll be out in a minute,” he told them all with a smile, “and help yourself to anything if Steve’s a shit host.”

“I’m _not_ a shit host!” they all heard the protest from the grand room; Jackie giggled into Mike’s shoulder, and Mike grinned broadly at Tony. 

“The ramp turned out great, Tony,” he praised sincerely, giving Tony’s shoulder an affectionate pat. “You did real good work.”

“I,” Tony started to say, but he cleared his throat before trying again. “I had help.”

“I hauled the pieces of the ramp into the back of the truck and drove it four blocks,” Mike drawled. “You know what, kid? If you want to attribute your genius as a collaboration with me for that kind of effort, you’re welcome to it.”

Tony gave him a wobbly smile and struggled to find any words of gratitude when Bucky clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Here, _kid_ ,” he told Tony and shoved his and Natasha’s coats into Tony’s hands. “Put these away so your guests can be guests.”

“Yes, sir,” Tony groused, albeit with a small grin, and before they’d all disappeared too far down the hall he remembered to add, “Bucky, lint roller is in the island: top drawer, far right.”

Bucky turned when he first heard his name, and he couldn’t help a grin. “I wear Ohio’s hand-me-downs with pride.”

Tony rolled his eyes and waved him off, but he dutifully hung up Bucky and Nat’s coats as soon as Mike was done hanging up his and Jackie’s. Without further delay, he hurried to the bedroom to change, trusting the other early arrivals to be fine between Steve and Jackie’s attentions. 

The bedroom was spotless, and so tidy it almost made his fingers itch. The bed was made with perfect corners and symmetry, one of Tony’s quilts draped across the foot of the bed as usual with the woolen socks that kept his feet warm at night tucked neatly together on the quilt. The leave-in conditioner he had picked up a few weeks ago sat on a shelf by the hot tub, a bedroom luxury positioned only a few feet from the bed with a sprawling view of the private kitchen garden. 

The family Polaroid portraits from earlier lay on the nightstand farthest from Tony’s side, two of them placed apart from a small stack of the rest. Tony eyed them curiously, and in realizing the two must have been Steve’s favorites, he picked up the little stack of rejects to thumb through. Towards the end of the stack he found one that was mostly a blur; Tony and William were both looking across at Sarah with an amused expression, Joseph was laughing at something Sarah was telling him, and Steve was valiantly trying to smile for the photo. 

He stood there looking at the photo for some time. Eventually he put the other photos down, stumbling a step or two backwards until he was sitting on the bed, not once look away from the picture. Tony’s hand was on Steve’s shoulder; Joseph head was thrown back laughing; Sarah’s affectionate look of mischief—all of it was enough to make him wonder. 

What if these moments—the ones filled with laughter and love—had been the ones his family had hoarded over money and invention? It was futile now to hope, but Tony couldn’t resist the temptation, couldn’t help but wonder now if there had ever been a chance for his own family to find tender moments like this that did not inherently have a price. 

*** 

“Mosby’s could be here any minute,” Steve muttered to Natasha well past four-thirty, pretending to be chatting with her as he would any other guest while covertly pacing in circles. “Where is Tony? Without him—”

“The world will end, women will rule humanity’s first golden age, and someone will wear your tight ass on their fist like a first-class hand-puppet,” Natasha guessed, taking a sip of her champagne. Distracted though he was, there were enough delicate family relations around that Steve blushed fiercely and quieted down for two blissful seconds. Briefly, Natasha dared to imagine she had the opening to change the subject of conversation, but then he started again. 

“And if he brings Alice,” he groaned under his breath, downing his champagne in one go. “We don’t even have a piano—what will they think when there’s no Maria Dario piano?”

Natasha sighed, and gave him a flat look. “If Tony volunteered that information, he will have an explanation. Or has he let you down before?”

“No. _But,_ ” Steve said emphatically, “this is the first time he isn’t here. It doesn’t take forty-five minutes to put on a suit.”

“Maybe he’s waiting to make a grand entrance,” Natasha suggested. “Don't you have other things to worry about, like whether James is going to remove your swimmers for good? He was ready to hurt you last night.”

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face and closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself. “He told me as much. We talked,” Steve told her quietly, “or he told me that we _would_ talk. He didn't want to ruin my family’s day. Or, Tony’s day, but he's not even here, and it's all pointless if he's not here.”

“He will be here. This is his last hurrah with your family, he wouldn't— _Steve._ ” she suddenly hissed, grabbing for him as Steve marched off in the direction of the bedroom. He moved too fast for her to get a hold of, and with a roll of her eyes, Natasha let him go. 

Enough guests stopped Steve along the way to ask him where his husband was, and would they not be meeting him today, that by the time he reached the bedroom door across the hall Sarah and Joseph had caught up with him. 

“How is he, dear?” was Sarah’s first question. “Is he nervous? Did you tell him there’s nothing to be nervous about—we’re all here, we wouldn’t—”

“Mom, I haven’t had a chance to talk to him,” Steve admitted as he rapped his knuckles on the bedroom door. “Tony? Tony, the guests are arriving, they’re asking for you.”

But there was no answer from the bedroom. In one awful second Steve’s blood ran cold at the thought of Tony leaving early, and he scrambled down to his knees to peek into the room through the keyhole. 

There, sitting on the bed and wearing the same jeans and t-shirt from earlier, was Tony, staring down at something in his hand that Steve couldn’t quite make out. 

“Tony? Tony!” he hissed, desperation seeping into his voice as the fear ebbed away. “Are you alright? What’s going on?”

Tony didn’t spare a glance his way, but exhaled deeply, and in a tired voice he muttered, “Would you please get the hell away from the keyhole?”

“What—what’s going on?” Steve demanded instead, and Sarah put a gentle hand on shoulder in a silent reminder to be kind. “Please, if there’s something you need to talk about—”

“Leave me alone!” Tony snapped at him without as much as looking his way, and from the wrong side of the door, Steve pressed his fists to his sides before his temper got the best of him. 

“Tony, I know this can't be easy after—just, can you talk to me? Mosby is going to be here any—” 

“Sweetheart,” Sarah interrupted him then, and with a gentle hand under Steve’s bicep urged him up to his feet. “Mr. Mosby is pulling up now.”

Steve’s head whipped around to look out the glass walls, and sure enough, his boss was pulling up in a car with a young woman beside him. 

“This can’t be happening,” he muttered under his breath, and Sarah took his hand gently in her own. 

“Darling, Tony is in there?” she asked to be sure, and Steve nodded in agreement. “Go welcome Mr. Mosby, honey, we’ll talk to—”

“Sarah,” Joseph interrupted gently, “why don’t you also go with Steve to welcome them? I will speak with Tony.”

“Pops, I don’t think lecturing him is going to help right now.”

Joseph looked at him for a long, silent moment before repeating his suggestion. “Son, go greet your boss with your mother’s help.”

“Come, dear,” Sarah urged him away gently, leading Steve away in time to meet Mosby and his daughter at the door. 

Joseph watched them walk further into the house, waiting for enough privacy before he turned to the door. He knocked gently on the door before announcing himself. 

“Tony, it is me,” Joseph said, keeping his voice low enough not to be heard in the grand room. “What’s the matter, son?”

There was only silence for a long time, but Joseph waited him out, and eventually Tony answered. 

“It’s all going to end.”

On his side of the door, Joseph frowned. “I don’t know what all the situation is between you and Steve, so I can’t offer any advice, I...” his words faded into silence then in a rare moment of uncertainty, and he stalled for some time to gather his thoughts. “I won’t tell you what to do. Understand that no-one can and no-one will, not in this family. What you are experiencing is unknown to me, I cannot imagine to… to engage with family at the anniversary of a most awful event. All I can say is that we love you, Tony. All of us. You’re family now. I don’t know if that means anything anymore, but—we’re here for you, son, if you need us.”

*** 

“When dad said that he had met with Maria Dario’s son, I couldn’t believe it! It was like something out of a dream,” Alice was telling Steve and Sarah with palpable excitement. “It’s been maybe ten years now, but if I could only tell you how much fun we had—you see, half of Maria’s lessons were formal dancing, but her love for the art had nothing to do with formalities.” 

“Tony told us about his mother’s love passion for dance,” Sarah said with a warm smile. “You speak of her love for dance the same way he does. She must have been an incredible woman.”

“She was extraordinary, Mrs. Rogers,” Alice agreed at once, as if relieved to hear that someone understood. “She had this effusive _joie de vivre_ , it was contagious—and when she’d dance with us, she would laugh whenever we said we felt foolish! Better foolish than afraid, she’d say, and then she would do something even worse, like—like combine the waltz with the tango with merengue, but she would do it with such excitement and confidence that you’d just wonder why nobody else had thought to do it before.”

Sarah laughed in delight, and nervous as he was even Steve smiled at Alice’s affectionate memories of Tony’s mother. 

“You see? And to think a man in my company was married to this great woman’s son,” Mosby chuckled, clearly marveling at his great luck with a proud smile. He gently hugged his daughter to his side to press a kiss to her temple before addressing Steve. “Now, Rogers, where are you hiding this young man?”

“I—you know, I haven’t seen him in a few minutes,” Steve said through a tense smile, and he made a show of looking around the crowd to give himself a moment’s pause to calm himself. “I don’t see him, he might be in the loft, why don’t we look there?”

“This is a beautiful home,” Alice commented with a thoughtful smile as they climbed the stairs up to the loft overlooking the grand room. “You designed this yourself?”

“I did, it—it was a passion project,” he replied, looking grateful and relieved to have the conversation somewhere he could talk more confidently. “Here, both bookcases are counterweighted so that they can pivot easily,” he added, gently pulling the bookcase forward on its track to show them how it could add privacy to the loft by blocking the view from the grand room before pushing it back against the wall again. 

“I don’t see Tony here,” Mosby observed even as he looked around the loft. “You said he was here?”

“I thought he might be, but maybe he’s in the kitchen,” Steve guessed again, and before there could be another question he started for the stairs at the other side to lead them back down. “You know, I wanted to show you the kitchen anyway; a lot of architects tend to forget about the kitchen, but it’s where families spend so much of their time, and even with a small space like this there is a lot of potential.”

“But,” Alice asked gently even as she followed the lead of Steve and her father through the mingling crowd of guests. “Where is the piano?”

“Oh—oh, right, I think, uh,” Steve stammered, rushing to answer her question before his mom could say something to mess up whatever plan Tony had. “I think it’s best if Tony explains? He was the one who made the final decision, I—I did not have the same attachment to it as he did.”

“How were you able to do this, Rogers?” Mosby wondered then, looking around the expansive kitchen with its large island counter, its cozy breakfast nook, and its overabundance of natural light even on a winter’s day in Massachusetts. “And on your salary. I am very impressed.”

“Well, I,” Steve tried to say, his mind having disconnected briefly at the praise. “I—mainly I borrowed, sir, from my parents. It was a home I needed to build right, I couldn’t cut corners. I didn’t want it to be like any other home.”

“I see,” Mosby said then, though mostly to himself, and he turned to his daughter then to say something that Steve couldn’t make out. 

“Steve,” Sarah told him quietly, and with a gentle squeeze of his arm she urged him to look to their left. “Your father.”

It was just enough warning for Steve to take a few steps away to meet his dad halfway. 

“Steven,” Joseph addressed him gravely, lowering his voice to keep it private. “Son, I think you need to speak with Tony.”

“Pops, I can’t right now,” Steve insisted and tried to gesture in Mosby’s direction. “This is really delicate—”

“It is not that you can’t, son, it is that you won’t,” Joseph said with a sudden anger, “your choices have not—”

The muscles of Steve’s jaw twitched in anger, and he growled more than he spoke in his effort to stay calm. “This is _not_ a good time—” 

“Steve!”

The happily mingling voices of the crowd hushed to silence at Tony’s unexpectedly loud voice, and as one they turned to see him standing in the hallway, beaming at Steve from across the room. He paused there for a short time, as if he recognized the effect he had on people—as if he knew how people would stare at the precise cut of his suit, bold across his shoulders and gentle at his slim waist. The rich fabric moved gracefully with his body as he passed through the crowd in a direct line for his family, and though he paused to smile and welcome everyone he passed, he didn’t stop anywhere for too long until he reached Steve. 

“It’s alright, dad,” he said quietly, smiling up at Joseph. “Thank you, for before.”

Joseph nodded at him with a kind smile, and in place of words, he clapped Tony on the shoulder with pride. 

“Oh, Tony,” Sarah whispered with such excitement, and she hurried to hug him and kiss him hello. “Darling, you look so handsome.”

“Sublime,” Steve murmured from beside them, but when Sarah and Tony turned to look at him he blushed a vibrant scarlet so quickly it made Tony outright laugh. Sarah giggled to herself and went to Joseph, who was still looking a little sour, and she led him back into the resuming mingling of the crowd. 

“What have I said about keeping compliments that belong to me to yourself?” Tony teased him with a big smile, and when he took a step closer Steve didn’t hesitate to draw him into his arms and soundly kiss him in front of their friends and family. Wolf-whistles, clinking glasses, and joyful applause filled the space around them, until they were both smiling too much to continue kissing. 

“Tony?”

Tony hummed quietly in a distant acknowledgement to his name, absently licking his lips before he got it together and noticed the breathless young woman who had said his name. He cleared his throat even as he smiled at her, recognizing her in an instant. 

“Alice!” he greeted her with a big smile and a bigger hug, “it’s great to see you—almost eleven years now, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“But you’re—” she stammered, still staring at him with big eyes. “You’re Tony S—” 

“Edwards,” he finished for her, “I know, I didn’t take his name—sometimes I wish I had, but it’s a long story, I promise I’ll tell you all about it—and Winston, hello! So good of you to come,” he hurried to say and shake the man’s hand, laughing ruefully at his own poor manners. “I owe you an apology, I just can’t believe it—I saw Alice and all I could think about were the times it was just you, me, mom, and Celia, do you remember that?” 

But Mosby laughed heartily, brushing off Tony’s apology without a second thought. “A week now and every call home from university, this is all we’ve talked about.”

“What are you studying?” Tony asked with a bright smile, but since Alice was mostly staring at him in shock, he casually added, “why don’t we find a place to catch up—you are alright here, aren’t you?” he asked Steve and Mosby. “Aren’t you impressed by my husband’s work, Winston? I told you it’s an incredible home; it’s like magic, the house grows the more you love it.”

“Yes, well, what I have seen has been quite good,” Mosby agreed, and he seemed to understand what Tony was suggesting quite easily. “Why don’t you show me this house and let them two catch up?”

“Of course,” Steve replied a little breathlessly, as if he couldn’t believe his luck; he couldn’t lie like Tony, but he could talk about design, he could talk about art. This, he could do very well. “Did you see the south-facing windows? I chose the four by four pattern to allow more sun.” 

Once Steve had lead Mosby away, Alice tried again. “You’re Tony Stark,” she insisted in a whisper, and Tony casually led her further towards the kitchen so that they would have more privacy. “I’m—I’ve read both interviews you’ve ever given! They call you the golden goose of technology, of our generation, oh god, I can’t believe I’m standing in front of you. What are you doing here? I had no idea you were gay!”

“I’m not—” Tony bit down before he reacted too suddenly to all that she said, and he made himself pause and put on a smile before answering. “Alice, you—” he stopped himself again with a heavy sigh, because that wasn't right either. He leaned back against the heavy table in the breakfast nook, then decided to tell her the truth. 

“Look, this is my family, my wedding reception. I am Maria’s son, and I am your childhood friend. Dad wouldn't divorce her, so all she could do was change her name. I… I didn't want to be a Stark then, and I don't want to be one now; I just want to be Tony. Can that be enough?”

Alice watched him thoughtfully for some time, until she seemed to make up her mind and she sat down on a bench in the breakfast nook beside him. “Steve really did a great job with this house. It’s beautiful.”

“Didn’t he?” Tony grinned back at her with a relieved ease, and he slid down into the seat opposite her. “So what do you do now? Do you still dance?”

“Not that often,” she admitted with a little frown. “I’m finishing my degree in journalism. My life is just everywhere, you know? Working part-time at the Courant, finishing my classes, and freelancing was difficult last year, but now that I’m also looking for jobs I’m about to go out of my mind. Nobody said becoming an adult was so much work!” she added with a laugh, and Tony grinned back easily. 

“If they had, none of us would’ve wanted to grow up,” he agreed, his amusement clear in his voice. “You know, I know I promised your dad that we’d have mom’s piano, I should apologize, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up.”

“No! No, not an apology,” Alice assured him, reaching across the table and giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I just—I was just wondering. I didn’t see it anywhere.”

“I decided to donate it to a school. This school,” he clarified, “Joseph, Steve’s dad, he’s the principal of the whole school system here, K through 12. He cares so much about the kids, and mom, she...”

“She loved kids,” Alice finished for him with a kind smile. “That’s a very thoughtful memorial to her, Tony. I think she’d be so pleased. Although, I was looking forward to another dance,” she admitted, if a little shyly. 

Tony beamed at her confession, and he bounced to his feet immediately, eagerly coaxing her to stand up with him. “We don’t need a piano for that—we have music, but let’s see... do you still remember how to salsa?”

***

“A hot tub in the bedroom,” Mosby said mostly to himself as they took a quick tour of the other part of the house. “Where do the stairs lead?”

“A reading room,” Steve answered, reaching to flick the light on to invite Mosby to climb up ahead of him. “It’s not that big,” he hedged nervously before following him up, but Mosby wasn’t saying much when Steve caught up with him. 

From the floor to the ceiling, every inch of the walls of the reading nook was dedicated as either big, single-panel windows, or recessed bookshelves, with a rolling ladder to help them reach the highest shelves. The furniture up here was scant, the space not often used by either of them, but Steve recognized the old recliner as the old beast his dad had first sold to Tony, and the heavy blanket draped across the back of the seat had kept him warm many winter nights as a child. The shelves were not yet filled, not by far, and on the empty shelf nearest the recliner sat a dirty coffee mug next to a dog-eared copy of O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. 

“Your use of space is very creative, Rogers,” Mosby finally said, though he seemed a little distracted by the view. “Is it by design that you can see the grand room from everywhere?”

“Everywhere but the bedroom, yes sir,” Steve agreed and he came to stand beside Mosby to see what he was watching. 

Down in the grand room, the crowd had parted to open a small space for Alice and Tony to dance. Even with the insulation and the wind outside they could even hear the well-muffled sound of music filtering in across the way, a fast-paced, upbeat rhythm to inspire and carry the pair as they twirled and parried in tandem, their hips and their bodies swaying together and apart like a couple who had been practicing for weeks, not near-strangers on their first night together. 

The first time they saw Tony sweep Alice off her feet and drape her effortlessly over his arm as he spun her around, Mosby lit up like the Fourth of July, applauding and chuckling in delight. 

“There’s nothing better than to see that happiness on your child’s face,” Mosby told Steve sagely, sounding more pleased than Steve could stomach. Because Alice wasn’t the only one who looked happier than before. 

He would never see this again; he’d never hear Tony’s laughter fill a room, never share a couch with him and look across a book to see Tony engrossed in another tale of fiction, or messing with Teddy’s ears. They were going to say goodbye, and Steve would have to explain it to his family, explain it to Bucky—find some way to tell them how he lost the brightest star in his sky, and find his way in the dark again, alone. 

He wasn’t quite sure how he managed to excuse himself before he stumbled down the stairs. The world was contracting around him, strangling him, bearing down on his heart and his lungs with chilling fingers. All he could do was kneel by the tub and press his forehead into the cool porcelain to steady himself as he felt an attack taking over, until he was gasping through his grinding teeth for a breath. 

With his eyes closed to the world, he gave ground to his innermost peace , and he thought of strong, bare shoulders carrying their dog home, of beautiful, fiercely intelligent eyes, and of the desperate grip of his fingers, the way he had needed Steve to breathe like Steve needed him now. 

As the pain and the sound of his own stuttering breath faded, he was distantly aware of the quieting music and the sudden roar of applause. From the stairs he heard the steady footfalls of Mosby returning to the first floor, and he scrambled to push himself upright before his boss could see him at his worst. 

“You alright there, Rogers?” Mosby asked just as Steve was straightening up, and Steve quickly cleared his throat and smiled at him. 

“Lost a contact,” Steve lied smoothly, holding up his hand as if to indicate how he had found the thing again, and then he gestured for the door. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute?”

“Take your time,” Mosby assured him with a big smile, and he marched through the bedroom with purpose, presumably in a hurry to go congratulate his daughter on a wonderful performance. 

Alone again, Steve lingered in the bedroom waiting for his breath to even out and his heart to calm down. He glanced around the room at the small familiar touches—Teddy’s pillow bed, Tony’s woolen socks, the quilt folded neatly over the foot of the bed for the colder nights. 

When Steve rejoined the party, the crowd had dispersed and it seemed dinner was being served. He moved from one little cluster of friends and family to the next, catching up with them and answering questions about the house, until he almost literally ran into Peggy. On instinct he reached out and caught her, steadying her with one arm around her waist and catching one of her two plates with his free hand. 

“Oh, my goodness—” she laughed breathlessly, “I was even looking for you! Thank you, my hero,” she said in a quieter voice, kissing his cheek in greeting. “ I was just thinking that I haven’t seen you in days. Sit with me for lunch?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and he was soon smiling at the thought. “That’s, thank you for the plate, Peggy. I think I need to be with Tony and my parents for lunch, but I’ll come find you after for a coffee. Is that alright?”

“Only if there’s a raincheck on the lunch,” she teased, and she reached to gently pick some lint off his arm. “It’s been too long since we were out for a one-on-one, Steve.”

“Of course,” he promised, and carefully untangled himself to go find his family. 

“Steve!” Sarah called him as he walked through to the far side of the grand room, and he found his parents, Tony, and his grandpa all seated at a small table with their plates of pasta and glasses of wine. “Come here, sweetheart, pull up a chair.”

“Before I forget, this pasta is incredible,” Tony told him as he pulled up a chair, then added, “grandpa is telling us about Dr. King, and if you’re going to interrupt again you can go sit somewhere else.”

Having almost forgotten that minor prank already, Steve snickered at the memory and comfortably sat down beside them. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“You were saying,” Tony reminded William gently then, trying to return to the conversation before Steve joined them. “Your father in the Second World War?”

“My pa was determined that we Irish prove ourselves; he’d say the price of freedom was worth paying. Except there ain’t no _one_ price of freedom. There never was. But to hear Dr. King speak,” William continued with a nostalgic grin, “he’d remind you that none of us could fight another man’s fight, but to stand beside him could ease his struggle.” 

Tony all but squirmed in his seat at the thought, struggling not to interrupt him with more questions. “Do you remember the Black Power movement?” 

“I'm hard of hearing, son, I'm not senile! I remember them: Stokely Carmichael, Fred Hampton—John Carlos and Tommie Smith in ‘68, you'd thought they'd spit in a child’s face by the look of some people.”

Steve settled comfortably into his seat and draped an arm over the back of Tony’s chair, absently stroking a few fingers along Tony’s arm as he watched him and his grandpa in conversation, indulging in the way Tony’s eyes lit up with curiosity and excitement. The two of them carried nearly the entire conversation, much to the delight of Steve and his parents. 

***

Hours later, when the tables had been removed after dinner and dessert, most of their guests dispersed to find comfortable seating on the sofas, chairs, or recliners where they could nurse their coffees and conversations. 

Tony was standing beside Steve as he and Rita were catching up, when the sound of giddy, conspiring laughter caught Tony’s ear. He stepped away from Steve and Rita’s conversation to see what Peggy, Alice, and a handful of other ladies from the town were giggling about on the couch. “Something funny, ladies?” 

Peggy smiled and leaned to the right in her armchair to free space for Tony, patting the now-free cushioned armrest for him to take perch. “You should join us, Tony. We were just telling Steve-stories,” she said with a smile. 

“Ah, yes,” he managed through a forced smile in return, and he chose not to sit with them even as he swallowed back his instinctive response and said, “how fun.”

“Steve?” Peggy called, and Steve turned obediently to hear what Peggy wanted, standing expectantly beside Tony. “Do you remember that time when you built a treehouse in my parents backyard?” she asked with a cheerful smile, then turned to the other ladies on the couch to add, “it was so incredible. I—”

“Steve built me a treehouse, too,” Tony interrupted before Peggy got a chance to elaborate on her story. The women looked up in surprise, but Peggy was the only one who looked skeptical. 

“He did?”

“Yes, he did,” Tony said and looked up at Steve with a warm smile, “on our honeymoon night, in a big tree in the Common.”

Even though his attention was partly distracted wondering where Mosby was, Steve, only recently adept at these games, smiled back at Tony and wrapped an arm around his husband, pulling Tony in against his body for an affectionate squeeze. It didn’t take much to find his boss in the crowd, but Steve wasn’t necessarily comforted to see him in conversation with his father. 

“The cops didn’t stop you hammering away in the middle of Boston Common?” Peggy asked Steve, who was so busy watching Mosby and his father that she had to prompt him again. “Steve?

“Oh, yeah—no,” he hurried to say, turning his attention partly back to her to explain. “It was easy, just a matter of fabricating the panels and securing it to the tree with cable suspension. Quick and silent.”

“Isn’t he the greatest?” Tony beamed, nuzzling into the firm chest of his distracted husband and squeezing him in adoration. “If he wasn’t already mine, I’d consider it a crime to be this clever and handsome.”

The women laughed in delight, but Peggy could barely muster a smile.

“Steve, do you remember our adventure walks?” she wondered, smiling at the memory as she began sharing it with the women beside her. “There was this one time, we went looking for a crashed meteor—”

“—meteorite.” Tony muttered under his breath through a false smile, but he nodded along to show how deeply he was enjoying this spontaneous Steve-off. 

“We’d climbed down the side of this valley to get to the riverbed,” she continued, either dismissive or unaware of Tony’s interruption. “It was a beautiful day, the summer after we had graduated college, and it was our first little adventure after not seeing each other for weeks. And poor Steve, we had walked six, seven miles already, and he’d insisted on carrying all of our food, his art supplies, everything. But just as we’re getting to the bottom, I step right into a rabbit hole and twist my ankle. It swelled up immediately, and Steve, worrywart, thought it might have broken and insisted that we go back. So he carried me up the valley, and all the way home without so much as a pause. And in the end,” she said with a loving smile, “I think he was still happier than everyone, myself included, that it was only a sprain.”

Tony mimicked the delighted adoring laughter from Peggy’s growing audience, and finally scoffed a little up at Steve, shaking his head as if in loving exasperation. “It’s nice to know what a gentleman you used to be,” he teased, then with a playful, conspiring look at the ladies on the couch, he elaborated in stage-whisper, “we’ve only been on one adventure walk, but it was enough for a lifetime: last summer we hiked to Vermont. So much walking—so many mosquito bites, I don’t think a single inch of my skin was safe that summer. Anyway: we swing by Red Rocks Park. Beautiful, great ice cream—the whole nine. And when we’re standing up there on the rocks—you should have seen that view, it was stunning, with this endless water ahead and, well. I decide to take one little dip in the water... Steve flips a lid.”

“You know I don't like heights!” Steve accused in a strangled voice, and the laughter around them carried so far that even Mosby, who was now chatting with Sarah in the kitchen, turned their way to listen in. 

“I know! Which is why _I_ jumped, and I didn’t ask you to do it,” Tony explained with a poorly restrained laugh, rubbing Steve’s lower back gently as if to soothe the memory away. “Except, of course,” he told the couch, “what does he do? He runs off the cliffside and jumps in right after me, because according to Steve…. There could have been sharks. In _Vermont_. But then the best part—what do you think he grabbed from our supplies to defend us from these bloodthirsty killing machines?” he asked the women rhetorically, giving them a few minutes to calm their laughter and pique their curiosity even further. “A ballpoint pen.”

“Tony!” Steve complained, but even he was struggling not to snicker along with the rest of the house. “That’s awful.”

“No, what was awful was the hour long hike back to our stuff,” Tony told him, “I had to follow you and your Angry Shoulders the whole way up.”

“That’s unbelieveable,” Peggy noted with a polite smile, “how… different you two seem. Especially you, Steve.”

Tony frowned at the implication, and with a shrug of his shoulders he looked up at Steve. “Well, we did it. Or ask Steve; he wouldn't lie.” Without a pause to let Peggy respond or ask herself, Tony turned to Steve and asked him, “Baby, did we or did we not hike to Vermont last summer?”

Sensing some kind of rising tension, Steve’s smile faded, and he blinked from Tony to Peggy as if unsure of how the question got punted to him so suddenly. But he was nodding in the affirmative on instinct, and he looked entirely earnest when he told Peggy, “We did.”

“Satisfied?” Tony asked Peggy with a wry twist of his lips, beginning to sound far less playful with every passing minute.

“I never said you didn’t!”

“Like hell,” he growled at her, stepping away from Steve and gravitating towards Peggy in his anger. 

“All I said was that you seem ...well-suited for each other,” she explained with a plastic smile, and Tony’s frown only deepened.

“Don’t you think I know what that means?”

“I just—it sounds to me like you’re both very creative.”

“Oh! So in other words we’re both liars,” Tony translated in obvious exasperation, and he turned to Steve. “I hope you’re hearing this?”

“Sweetheart,” Steve started to say in a placating tone, and he reached for Tony to offer comfort. But Tony stepped back, moving away from Steve and his false comfort, and angrily he gestured his hand in Peggy’s direction as if the source of his frustration wasn’t obvious enough. 

“—Don’t defend her! Don’t you hear what she’s saying?”

“I don’t hear her saying anything—”

“Exactly! That’s exactly the problem: you don’t hear and you don’t see!” Tony snapped at him, indignant and miserable, and with the same disgusted breath he turned to Peggy with a wry, ironic smile. “How clever you think you are. Don’t you think I know you’re in love with my husband? Don’t you think I can see your sympathy for him for having married a fruitcake like me?”

“Tony, no,” Steve whispered gently, reaching to take him by the hips and reel him into his arms, but Tony stumbled away from him like a skittish colt, repelled by the thought of Steve’s touch. 

“You had your chance with him,” he seethed, resisting the urge to shout only so the tremble in his voice might sound more like rage and less like heartbreak. “You had him building your damn treehouse and going on adventure walks, and this house—this beautiful house—he made all of it for you. And on the day he offered his heart to you, you blew it. _You blew it_ , and you can’t stand it. But _I’m_ the one who found him. _I’m_ the one who knows what he’s worth! Except, next to you, none of that matters,” he ultimately admitted, his voice breaking as he struggled against the tears. 

Around them, nobody made a sound. Tony turned his back on them then, unable to look at either Steve or Peggy anymore, and he reached for the mantelpiece in a desperate attempt to anchor himself again. For a brief time, with his eyes closed and the absolute silence of the crowd, it worked. But when he opened his eyes again and saw the wedding presents stacked only inches from his face, gifts and well-wishing cards from kind-hearted strangers reminding him again of just where Peggy belonged and where he didn’t, rage finally consumed him, and with a sweep of his arms he threw all of them crashing to the floor. 

He stepped away from the mess and glared at Peggy. “Nothing I do matters,” he told her softly, much too softly. “And it never will, because you are still the goddamn one he wants.”

“Tony, wait—” Steve pleaded, but Tony shoved past him, all but running out of the house. 

In his absence, all eyes turned on Steve. He gaped at the attention for a moment before mumbling something about going after Tony and hurried after him. It wasn’t until he was about to step out onto the porch that Mosby’s distinct voice rose over the rumbling melee of guests. 

“Rogers!”

“Mr. Mosby, I’m really sorry for this,” Steve tried to say without rushing, but Mosby waved his excuses away. 

“None of that now,” Mosby replied, unconcerned by the drama, and instead told him, “Rogers, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Tony, but I want you to keep this in mind: I wouldn’t have seen this house if it wasn’t for that husband of yours, and I wouldn’t be giving you the promotion I’m giving you if I hadn’t seen this house.”

With nothing left to say, Mosby gave him a curt nod and turned back into the house, leaving Steve to stare after him like a deer in headlights. 

In the span of minutes, all his dreams were coming true, and he struggled to process his good fortune. With staggering, laborsome steps he made his way down to where Tony stood by the frozen pond, hunched in on himself and silent. 

“You are the best! Tony, you're miraculous—I couldn't even believe my own eyes!” Steve told him excitedly as soon as he stood beside Tony, “I got the promotion!”

“Can I—could I have your handkerchief, please?” Tony asked quietly, holding his hand out expectantly. 

“My what—oh,” Steve shook himself and reached for the handkerchief in his jacket pocket to offer him. “You know, I can’t believe it. The whole situation seemed so hopeless,” Steve went on to say, still marveling at the whole performance. “In one stroke you fixed _everything!_ ” he cried even as he made a show of gently rubbing Tony’s shoulder to show the people observing them from the house that he was offering comfort. 

But in the false comforting, he couldn’t help but notice Tony shivering in the cold, and Steve hurried to shrug out of his jacket to drape it over Tony’s shoulders. “There, warm up,” he said quietly, rubbing at Tony’s arms in earnest to help warm him up. “I just can’t believe how you handled everything—I was standing right there and I still can’t believe what I saw. Maybe, you know, smashing the gifts was a bit over the top, but—but you made it happen, so who am I to complain? God, I can’t believe this. You did it, you _actually did it!_ ”

A small smile tugged up on the corner of Tony’s lips, and he turned to face Steve with a small but genuine smile. “Steve? There’s something—something I want to say,” he started, and Steve nodded eagerly with a beaming smile, still giddy with relief and joy at the staggering success of Tony’s performance. “Earlier—last week, I mean, when you asked me how I felt? I wanted to tell you—”

But then Tony abruptly stopped speaking, his attention sliding away from Steve’s beautiful smile to something less pleasant approaching from behind Steve’s back. With a curious frown Steve turned to peek, and he really wasn’t surprised to see Peggy walking in their direction, unhurried and irritatingly poised, comfortably wrapped up in a red peacoat and an elegant holiday scarf. 

“I wish you both well,” Tony whispered a little hoarsely then, and he shrugged off Steve’s suit jacket and folded it over his forearm with care before handing it back to him. “I—for what it is worth, I,” he paused abruptly, until after some time he could quietly continue again. “I love you, Steven Grant Rogers. I—I love your family, your friends—this whole damn town. I love this life. Thank you for letting me share in it.”

But Steve only stared back at him, stunned and approaching horrified. “You _what._ ” 

“Steve?” Peggy called from several feet away, in part to announce herself and in part out of confusion at Steve’s sudden exclamation. 

Steve frowned and turned to see what she was saying, and he struggled to find words that were at once honest and polite. “Peggy, this isn’t a good time, I—I want to talk to you,” he promised, “really, I need to talk to you, but this is—I’m not actually sure what this is, but can you give me a minute with Tony?”

“With Tony?” she asked, a little confused. “Of course, darling, but isn’t he ...you know, leaving?”

“That’s—that was a rash moment, it’s—it’s been a really emotional day, and maybe there was some overreacting; we just need some time, please, Peggy.” 

“Steve, I’m not trying to end your marriage,” she told him gently, coming to him and taking one of his cold hands in both of her warm, gloved hands. “You’re a good man, you deserve to be happy. But he’s leaving,” she clarified, pointedly nodding her head at the far side of the house. “Right now, he’s leaving.”

“No, he said—” Steve started to say, but then turned around in time to see Tony closing the front door of the house behind him. He growled a curse under his breath, and without another word or glance back at Peggy he ran to the house.

He barely kept his footing on the slippery porch when he lept up the stairs, but mercifully he slipped in the right direction, falling against the front door and soon shouldering it open. With a handful of apologies to the people crowding the narrow hallway staring after Tony, Steve rushed for the bedroom door and muttered a silent prayer before trying the door handle. 

This time it gave away under his hand without resistance. He braced himself, gathering for a fight before he dared to open the door. But when he stepped into the bedroom, it was tidy, quiet, and empty. 

Steve blinked in confusion as he walked further into the room, because for the first time in a long time, nothing about it felt right. He called Tony’s name, but heard nothing in return. Teddy’s pillow bed was missing, the knitted socks that Tony always kept neatly rolled up on the quilt at the foot of the bed were gone, and the closet door was left open enough to reveal its unnaturally barren shelves. 

In place of Tony’s night-time socks, two white envelopes were left on the quilt. Expecting a farewell note or explanation of some kind, Steve walked over to the bed and snatched the envelopes up in a hurry. 

One was addressed to him, and the other addressed to his parents. He opened them both, and they each included the same thing: a check for two million dollars each addressed to Steven G. Rogers, and another to Joseph and Sarah Rogers, signed by none other than Anthony Edward Stark. 

As soon as reality registered, Steve dropped the envelopes as if his hands had been burned. With a final glance around the room, he decided Tony could only have exited the house through the private door to the porch from the bedroom, and sure enough, when he got out on the porch he could make out the outline of Tony and Teddy in the night, walking in the direction of the town together. 

Steve took off in a sprint after them, and as he ran he brought his hands up to cup around his mouth. With exaggerated excitement he called out, “Roosevelt! Here, boy!” 

Far ahead, Teddy instinctively turned back to obey Steve’s command, interrupting Tony’s escape by trotting back home to Steve. The dog stopped walking when Tony tugged on his leash, but he seemed reluctant to follow Tony and leave Steve behind. 

The puppy’s confusion was all the stalling Steve needed to catch up with them at the far end of the driveway. 

“You—” he panted, coughing in the dry, winter air. “You were going to tell me something? Something about—how you felt?”

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but the roar of a powerful engine disrupted the silence of the night. They both turned to see a large, black Rolls Royce glide up to the house ahead of two black Cadillac SUVs. Steve frowned at the sight, unaware and suspicious of the unusual vehicles, but beside him Tony only sighed at the timing. 

A man in a fine, black suit stepped out of the driver’s seat of the Rolls with an unidentifiable bundle in his hands. He walked around the car, wading clumsily through the snow as he made his way over to them. “Boss? You alright?”

“All good,” Tony called back with a wave, though he sounded anything but. 

Steve stared, a hapless witness to this strange man bundling Tony up in a plush, velvet blanket. “Tony, who is this?”

“Happy,” Tony said quietly, resigned, and his bodyguard looked up in concern. “Can we pick up some burgers on the way home, please?” 

Happy stared a little too long at the please but he nodded as soon as he recovered from the surprise. “Sure thing, Boss.” 

“Wait—where are you going?” Steve frowned as he saw Tony gently coaxing Teddy along to the car. “Tony, this—you don't have to—damnit, Tony!” he suddenly shouted, and Tony startled beside the car, turning to stare at Steve in his confusion. Beside him, Happy was already reaching for his gun, and out of each SUV climbed two men in black suits, reaching into their jackets with a similar purpose, but Tony was quick to hold out his hand to stop them. Steve, somehow, continued to talk, seemingly unaware of their threat. 

“For once in your life, Tony, would you please— _please_ —stay and talk to me. You can’t do this—you can’t tell me you love me and then leave!”

Tony frowned. “What does it matter?”

“What does it ma—Christ, Tony,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand across his forehead as if to stymie a growing headache. “Did it ever occur to you that the feeling might be mutual? That maybe I love you, too, you dumbass?”

“Fuck you, Rogers,” Tony snapped back, “you don’t even know me.”

“I know you,” Steve disagreed viciously, “I know that you care about this damned world, and that you are brilliant: that your creativity and your intelligence make you exceptional.”

“Sure,” Tony agreed with a shrug. “That’s, what? The introduction to my Wiki-page?”

“I know you’re scared of everything that matters to you,” Steve continued, and that silenced Tony better than anything else he had tried yet. “I know you were scared of finishing your degree, because of what your family might some day make you do. I know you’re scared of being loved too closely, because it might some day end and hurt the people who matter to you. I know you’re scared of anything that reminds you of your dad, because you fear you might one day become him. But you never will, Tony.”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Tony hissed, and he turned to get into the car when Steve started shouting. 

“I know you’re afraid to stay now that you’ve confessed that you love me! Because you know I mean it when I say that I love you, too,” he added, a little more quietly. “You just don’t know what that means. But I do love you, Tony: I love the way you care for Teddy; I love the way you care about my family. I love—I love the way you lie with your words, but never with your actions. Not once, Tony. Stay, please. Stop running. This is your home.”

“I am going home, Steve: home to Manhattan. This,” he sighed, gesturing to the yellow house, “this was a fairytale. It’s not for me.”

“It’s not for you Tony: it’s because of you. All of it,” Steve insisted, “including me. You’ve changed my world Tony, just like I said you would. And I’m telling you now, if you run, I will follow you. I will find you again, whatever it takes; you couldn’t shake me when I first met you, and I won’t let you shake me now.”

Tony blinked at him in confusion. “What, at the Budapest?”

“You ran away from me that morning I proposed, don’t you remember?” Steve reminisced with an adoring smile. “You thought I was crazy. We had known each other less than two months, and I knew I wanted to marry you. Even then, Tony, before I’d ever seen your face: before I ever knew your public identity, I knew you were everything that mattered to me. Except,” he added with a grin, “I didn’t know where you lived. I’d seen you at the hospital and in my apartment; when you ran away, I had no way to find you again if you didn’t want to be found. And, it turns out, you didn’t.”

Tony frowned at all the nonsense that Steve was spouting, but the more he heard, the more difficult it was to resist a smile, and when Steve abruptly paused, Tony found it impossible to resist asking for more. “How did you find me?”

“I had your building address from the hospital bills, but no matter what I said, your doorman wouldn’t let me in,” Steve told him. “I couldn’t tell if they were really strict or if you had blacklisted me, and I tried every hour of the day and night, but it didn’t matter what shift it was: nobody was letting me in. Then one day, it occurred to me: how many Tony Stark’s could there be in one building?” he said with a little laugh, shrugging his shoulders as if to emphasize how easy the solution was. “So I did the only thing I could: I delivered myself to your building in a cardboard box, addressed to you. And it would have worked, too, if your aunt hadn’t been living across the hall from you. How the ‘Anthony’ was covered on my box I’ll never know. All I know is that my box was delivered to Stark on the 64th floor of Stark Tower, and that when I jumped out of my box with your bouquet, wearing nothing but a smile and a bowtie, a very kind looking old lady screamed and fainted.”

Tony suddenly barked with laughter, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to quiet himself. “You _idiot!_ ”

“—I had no idea where I was, I didn’t know what had happened—I didn’t even know who she was!” Steve hurried to explain, desperate to finish his story while Tony was still listening to him. “I ran out of there; in a building like that, someone would have heard her scream, and someone would have called 911. When I ran out, the other three people living on that floor were all out in the hallway, everyone on their phone, and they were probably all calling the police—but all I could see was you. God, how you took my breath away,” he whispered, shaking his head a little at how crazy he had been then. “You must have just woken up even though it was almost lunch time: I couldn't see your face, but I could see your grumpy eyes, and you were wearing these Wonder Woman bottoms that were probably a decade old, and distantly I might have known that the police was coming, but all I could think about was you.”

“And with all that chaos, I came to you,” Steve lowered his voice to say, speaking less urgently and closing the space between them with slow, confident steps, “and I knelt before you,” he whispered, taking a knee, “and I offered you my flowers and myself, and like I had a week before I asked you again: Marry me, Tony. I’m lost in this world without you.”

“Yes,” Tony whispered on his next breath, too quiet and too sudden to be heard by anyone. 

But Steve had seen his lips move, he had seen the tears in Tony’s eyes, and so when Tony fell forward Steve rose to catch him, wrapping his arms around Tony’s body and sweeping him up in a burst of euphoric delight, laughing and crying into the tender skin of Tony’s neck. 

“Say it again,” Steve whispered through happy tears. “Just one more time, I want to hear you say it.”

“I’ll say it a hundred times a day if that’s what you want,” Tony laughed, cupping Steve’s face and pulling on him until Steve would look up at him again. “In any reality I will love you, and I will marry you, baby, I will marry the crap out of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END. I almost can't believe it. 
> 
> Thank you so so so much to the lovely [ishipallthings](http://ishipallthings.tumblr.com/) for so much cheerleading and attentive beta (this would've been ughhh without you)!! And _thank you_ to all of you who have been commenting - whether once or twice or every chapter, y'all have been so kind to me and this story! It means very much to me. If you ever feel like a Stony chat, [I'm on Tumblr (as shetlandowl)](http://shetlandowl.tumblr.com/) more often than I should be.
> 
> On a minor note: For those curious/interested in what I had in mind for the boys during the reception, these are the two photos I was peeking at while writing - [Tony](https://68.media.tumblr.com/e73543bddf4848ea56532a0547747a92/tumblr_nuhro6dOgh1uwryr6o1_1280.jpg), [Steve](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZUg2pdkv2xs/TbFUyPHauWI/AAAAAAAAFn0/T0eGpq53Jus/s1600/The%2BChris%2BEvans%2BBlog%2B210411%2B003.jpg).

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so words, I have no words.
> 
> [Tonystarkier](http://tonystarkier.tumblr.com/) got me this thoughtful and amazing birthday present: [beautiful artwork of our boys with their puppy](http://shetlandowl.tumblr.com/post/159090923125/look-at-them-tonystarkier-commissioned-this) by [Mero](http://baneme-art.tumblr.com/)! I'm beyond words! =D
> 
> [Hell13th](http://hell13th-blog.tumblr.com) brought the scene where Steve comforts Tony through his grief into life in [this beautiful and touching art!](http://shetlandowl.tumblr.com/post/159098956410/hell13th-blog-tony-didnt-say-muchwouldnt-or) Thank you so much, it makes me hurt in the best way <3


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